Editor’s Note: April is Autism Acceptance Month, and in addition to the monthly special-needs Masses coordinated through the Diocese’s Ministry With the Deaf and Persons With Disabilities, VITALity Catholic HealthCare Services of the Diocese of Camden sponsors Masses of Welcome and Inclusion. The next Mass will be April 23. Following is an appreciative letter sent by a parent after last year’s Mass of Welcome and Inclusion at Saint Damien Parish, Ocean City. The family asked to remain anonymous.
I attended a special Mass in which people with developmental disabilities and their loved ones were specifically welcomed. I went there with my son, who is 33 years old and has autism.
He and I have been walking the autism road together for more than three decades, and though I’d like to say that my strong roots within the Catholic faith tradition have sustained us over the course of this journey, this wouldn’t be an honest telling of the truth of my experience.
Honestly, I have not really felt that he belonged within a Catholic church community. He’s a rather quirky dude, prone to strange outbursts, odd behaviors, and even, at times, upsetting displays of intense anxiety. I’ve believed – partly because of actual experience but also no doubt as a consequence of my own fears – that someone whose demeanor falls so far outside the range of what we tend to consider “normal” would simply not fit in a typical Catholic church environment.
There would be so many stares, too many explanations to be given, too much overwhelming heartache when facing the pain of people’s misunderstandings, or worse, their scornful judgment of my son. Additionally, I rarely saw other parents bringing their children with developmental disabilities to church, so this seemed to underline my own sense of isolation.
[Then] I got to be part of an extraordinary experience. … I got to go to Mass with my son and feel not just a lack of that sense of isolation, but the full-fledged relief of true belonging.
It began as soon as we arrived. My son was promptly given an assignment. He and another person with autism, a lively young woman who was able to compensate for my son’s shyness, were stationed at the entrance to the church to hand out bulletins. I watched him doing this, holding his little stack of bulletins, waiting for his coworker to need him to step up with a bulletin for someone, eyes down with his bashfulness, but also with that gentle smile on his face that always appears when he is feeling pleased.
When the time came for the presentation of gifts, [the pastor] encouraged everyone either as or with a person who has a developmental disability to walk up behind the gifts. At this point a fairly large number of families … stood up to join the procession, my son and I among them. Here I was, my son beside me, standing in the middle of a group that included many of my fellow parents, the people who share with me every day the struggle of living in a world that creates such little space for anyone who cannot live up to its standards in terms of accomplishment, independence, prestige. As we walked up that aisle together, I looked right and left and saw an entire congregation watching us. … I was stunned to see in their eyes nothing but love.
I believe that when Jesus spoke of the pure in heart when he delivered his Sermon on the Mount, he included people like my son. Even more, I think that Jesus understood the gifts that people like my son can offer the rest of us, if we are open to seeing them.
If You Go
What: Sensory-Friendly Mass of Welcome and Inclusion
When: 10:30 a.m., April 23, with a reception to follow in Culliney Hall
Where: Saint Damien Parish, Saint Frances Cabrini Church, 2nd Street and Atlantic Avenue, Ocean City
More info: vitality.camdendiocese.org/event/ocean-city-sensory-friendly-mass-of-welcome-inclusion
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