When I visit St. Thérèse of Lisieux Church in Cresskill, N.J., in April, people arrive early and families talk to each other. They notice that I am new and ask my name. That is new to me. After moving to New York, I attended Mass at many new churches, and I sometimes felt like a tourist, clumsily entering what felt like a parish-slash-museum where regulars would prefer to worship undisturbed by interlopers like me, thank you very much.
It is nothing like that here, at St. Thérèse’s special needs Mass. In this oblong sanctuary that screams of the 1970s, the parish feels fully alive.
About 15 to 20 families regularly attend the Mass, which is held on Sunday monthly at 1:30 p.m.
I watch as people with disabilities fulfill the roles of lectors and soloists and altar servers. At the end, all are invited to the altar at the end of Mass to sing “Rise and Shine (Arky Arky),” a nursery rhyme about Noah’s Ark with accompanying choreography. I join in the dance gestures from the pews with other smiling parishioners.
Masses like the one at St. Thérèse offer safe spaces for people with disabilities to worship, where no one blinks an eye if they have an outburst or need to step out for a moment. They might also offer sensory adaptations. The Masses include people with disabilities among the liturgical ministers, which reminds the rest of the congregation that people with disabilities have abundant gifts to share with the church.
“I don’t know who started it,” Gerry Glass says of the special needs Mass. “Whoever they are, they’re a saint.”
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Delaney Coyne is a graduate student in theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is a former Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., fellow at America.
With thanks to America and Delaney Coyne, where this article originally appeared.
