The benefits of leaving Ur
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
With the culture becoming increasingly rotten and hostile, the motif of strangers in a strange land is more appealing to Catholics, popping up regularly in homilies and writing. But Abraham was not just a sojourner in a theoretical or esoteric way; he actually packed up and left Ur. After years of kvetching with our fellow active Catholics about our local diocesan decline and the general Catholic malaise in our diocese and our parish, my family actually did something about it. In late 2020, we made the decision to move to a different diocese to join a thriving Catholic school and growing, traditional parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We made the sacrifice in favor of a better faith opportunity for ourselves but more importantly our children. We gave up opportunities and a place we enjoyed to find something better, founded on faith. Moving to a stronger Catholic community was one of the best choices we have ever made. And we’re not alone.
As we introduced ourselves to others in our new parish, explaining that we had moved here to send kids to this school and join this parish, everybody was nonplussed. This was not the reaction we anticipated. It is not that we were looking for praise for the decision or a model, it just seemed like it would be a good conversation starter. Moving 120 miles for a parish and school seemed like a big deal, at least to us. But it was not a big deal in a parish with a number of people who had moved to join them, and often from much, much further away. Complimenting these transplants were others from within the diocese (or the neighboring one) who had a lengthy commute for Mass or school.
We were not the only ones being intentional about being a part of this Catholic community. Within a few months, friends from our old diocese made the move. Their friends from California followed a few months later. To be clear, this is not a case of friends following each other to some place, these are independent decisions of like-minded people to be a part of an intentional community. This community is full of converts, reverts, people who relocated from a great distance, and people who drive in from distances outside my comfort zone. Not everyone can make such a move, but many did.
Life in our old diocese was not bad. We had a good parish priest who tried hard, pursuing incremental improvements in face of resistance from the usual suspects. A new Bishop was more engaging but arrived with a pile of messes to clean-up, including not just the unfortunately usual scandals but also a sometimes high-profile exiling of priests viewed as potentially more conservative.
Our town did not have a Catholic high school (and had not for decades). The Catholic homeschool network was small and informal. The Latin Mass was not allowed in the diocese (though efforts were underway to fix that and later succeeded). Confession opportunities were limited. Churches were being shut down due to the priest shortage even while conservative priests were removed from assignments. There was not a better parish to drive to within the diocese. Big families were rare enough to stand out. Regional population decline exacerbated these problems. As in all such places, there were good people trying to fix, improve, and rejuvenate the local church with varying success.
The optimistic types who try to fix things are the real salt of the earth. Whether trying to bring 24-hour adoration into an area or creating a high school, they are often simply attempting to take something working well in another part of the country and bring it to the anemic local church. The world needs these reformers, but not everyone is going to succeed. Some ideas just would not work for practical reasons. Sometimes there are simple logistical problems--the population (or Catholic population of an area) may be too small. But often it’s a matter of resistance. Sometimes the resistance from liberals is ideological and understandable. But it’s often just silly--too many kids' sports routines to allow a church activity on a given day or on any day at all. The resistance stops so many good ideas and programs. But the optimism about improvement also stops good people from moving to better areas, changing parishes, or driving a little longer.
The optimist’s work keeps mediocre things from becoming bad, or at least from going from bad to worse. But we wanted something great for our family. We loved reading about the dynamic Catholic things going on in other regions. The stories of intentional Catholic communities, thriving parishes, growing and classically-oriented Catholic schools (with nuns!), and authentic liturgies enthralled us. In some areas the Church seemed to be thriving, rather than simply managing decline. My wife and I shared the links and chatted about how great things were in other dioceses. We talked about the dioceses that seemed to be doing great and had amazing parishes and schools, wondering where we could live if we really had a choice. It was a frequent but not serious area of discussion. My inflection point came while fishing.
I had won a guided fly-fishing trip with the bishop at the school charity auction, neither of us had fly-fished before but both were interested in trying. As the surprisingly-long trip wore on, I found myself talking about how great Sacred Heart was. A thriving academy with daily mass for the kids and a part-time program for homeschoolers seemed implausible to my boatmates. As I detailed how I thought it all seemed to work at Sacred Heart, I realized I should stop praising it and go join it. The bishop didn’t really have anything to say on the topic, though his silence was more likely a product of being an introvert stuck on a boat with two talkative guys and no food for several hours than a sign of any opinion on the subject.
The next day, I launched into planning our escape. Quite reasonably, my wife suggested we should pray about it. And, of course, we did, but the idea just felt so right from the get-go that we really felt called to do it. Like most Americans, I was tied to my job and a geography from it. But the pandemic had proven how my job could be done remotely. With courage and a few awkward conversations, I obtained permission to convert my role into a permanently remote one. Time will tell whether this holds back my career progression or makes me a more likely candidate for some future layoff, but we happily took the risk.
Of course it was not easy. The new, custom school uniforms are expensive and uniquely difficult to keep clean. The longer masses are harder on the little kids. Daily mass means school starts quite early, which is brutal on a family of night owls and actually makes it harder to take advantage of some of the awesome evening programming the parish has for adults. But the kids hear the adults speak favorably about their local church and its leaders. This is priceless.
Many of those reading this live in dysfunctional dioceses with churches that are failing to meet their needs. The pessimism experienced at home, though, might not overcome the logistical challenges of moving or the downsides of leaving behind a comfortable life for the unknown—of leaving behind the glitz of the big city for the actual life on the prairie. But I would submit that we should worry less about our house, backyard, neighborhood, or hobbies and more about getting ourselves, our children, and our future grandchildren into heaven.
How often do we hear people discussing the spiritual condition of an area compared to talking about whether they like the weather in a particular place? The weather in Hell has got to be worse. If God is calling you to a new place, it's important to both pray about it and take action. It's important to consider whether the things holding you back in a place where your faith and your children's faith aren't being nurtured are really worth it. The lack of a girl's rugby team or weaker job prospects may be a sacrifice, but eternity is more important. If your desire to improve your current location is preventing you from moving to a place where your faith will be nurtured, consider if you're truly willing to make the local changes necessary or if you're afraid of change and moving.
The same can be said of changing parishes or schools within a diocese. You may have invested a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into a parish or programs, but you do not owe the parish anything. Parents know that their children come first, even if the social ties or obligations may try to hold you back. The Knights of Columbus might assume you are going to take over as the next Grand Knight, but your child’s future is more important. And kids may complain about a longer drive to a more reverent mass--like they complain about going to bed on time or eating vegetables--but we need to do what’s best for them. When we promise to God on our wedding day to raise any children we are blessed with in the faith, we must strive to take that very seriously and do exactly that, even if our choices to accomplish that irrationally hurt or offend others or upset the childish expectations of our little kids.
There is always loss in moving or changing parishes. We left behind good friends, a forest, and even a dining room table. The table was amazing. We had a custom yet reasonably-priced banquet table made that could seat 14 but we only kept 12 chairs, so it was comfy. We made the chairs ourselves from a kit—not as much work as actually making chairs, but still plenty of work. The kids were involved in the work, making assembly a great family memory. I stained (or botched the staining) of the seats; my wife took the lead on painting the frames of the chairs. The final product was a thing of beauty and great utility, with memories along the way. But there was no way to fit the giant table in the new house (and we could not afford a new or larger house in the more expensive market that could accommodate such a table). Every time you move, you have to leave something or someone behind, whether it's a beloved table, fair weather, or family and careers. Losing a beloved table isn’t that bad. But that table mattered to us, and it was worth giving it up to move. Of course, we also left behind the valued friends who joined us at that table, including Godparents to our children. The table was a sign of the community we had developed there, which we were sacrificing in hopes of one greater. We moved to an area where we had lived before and had family; others have acted with real Abrahamic courage and faith.
Now, my kids are enrolled in an amazing classical academy that challenges them and their parents to grow in faith. We experience a beautiful liturgy in a beautiful place. We receive confession more frequently. We can no longer count the number of big families on one hand. The intellectual life is robust and makes us grow. But in greatest contrast to life back in the old diocese, the conversations at picnics and barbecues are much more positive. There is more praise of our local church and the direction it is going. We see the families who have moved closer to the parish walking their kids up to Mass before school starts. We are constantly discovering great new things going on in the area. Someone started a Catholic trade school. The Catholic presence at a local protestant school has grown so much that they are the biggest religious group on campus, with their own beautiful and official oratory on campus.
It has been almost two years since I left Ur, and my third grader still fervidly complains about leaving behind her two best friends. My sixth grader counters immediately, though, that if we were back in the old city they would only have Mass at school once a week, which she finds totally unacceptable.
