Signs of new life visible at Vigil
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 21, 2006
Detroit – When Fr. Timothy Pelc looked out over the congregation at St. Ambrose Parish in Grosse Point Park during the Easter Vigil, he could see clear signs of new life at a parish that, when he arrived as pastor 20 years ago, drew only a few dozen to its vigil.
"Every year (the Easter Vigil) celebrates different hallmarks," said Fr. Pelc following the vigil. "This year it was celebrating in an intense way the rebirth of an old city parish."
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Fr. Timothy Pelc (center), aided by altar server Gabriel Engler (left), baptizes Kevin Pruden (right) as Pruden's sponsor and fiancee, Julianne Saunders (far right), looks on. | This year, the people in the pews at St. Ambrose's vigil outnumbered the parish's supply of 500 candles. The parish has grown in the past two decades after merging with nearby St. Martin of Tours Parish and assuming members from St. Philip Neri Parish in 1989. So running out of candles was a good problem to have, the pastor said.
"It was a blessing to see that kind of rebirth and renewal," Fr. Pelc said. "I always like to say those are kind of dying experiences when you go through them. But often when you come out of them, they're very much experiences of brand new beginnings, new life."
The revived city parish's members also have a peculiar taste in sermons. At last year's vigil, Fr. Pelc explained, he told his parishioners about a friendship he made with a Jewish rabbi upon purchasing a suit second-hand from the rabbi on the popular Internet auction site eBay.
He used the story to relate the parallels between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.
Though he wasn't planning on using the story again, St. Ambrose parishioners inquired about the rabbi until he relented – giving his second homily about the rabbi's suit, and the old and new covenants.
"The rabbi said he didn't need his prodigal pants back," Fr. Pelc said about this year's homily. "He indicated that it allowed us to see our commonality as older siblings in the faith. And it gave me a launching pad to talk about our freedom. For Jews, Passover is freedom from slavery to exodus. For Christians, it's freedom from death to Christ."
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