If you peek into the gym of the Manassas
Park Community Center any given
Sunday, you can find it brimming with
chairs, baby strollers and children singing.
The scene is not the beginning of a
sporting event but the start of a Mass.
The 9:30 a.m. Spanish Mass is celebrated
by priests of All Saints Church
in Manassas, the largest parish in the
Arlington Diocese. This is the church's
third Sunday Mass in Spanish, with two
Masses celebrated at the big church in
Manassas in the afternoon and evening.
“What is happening in the community
of Manassas Park is a spring of blessings,”
said Father Juan A. Puigbó, All
Saints parochial vicar.
Adding an extra Mass in Manassas
Park city, where census data shows
that nearly 35 percent of the population
is Hispanic, enables people without
means of transportation to fulfill their
Sunday duty as Catholics.
According to Father Puigbó, the Hispanic
community in the area started
meeting at the center’s gym for a Christmas
Eve Vigil in 2010, and later met during
Holy Week. Noticing the immense
need, All Saints started offering Sunday
Masses consistently two years ago to
support a community thirsting to celebrate
their Catholic faith.
Morena Rodríguez, who helps to coordinate
the Masses, said that having a
Catholic service that people can walk
to is a blessing. Before that Mass was in
place, many Catholics in the area ended
up missing Mass or attending other
Christian services.
“They were going with our separate
brothers, with other groups,” she said in
Spanish. “(Once regular Mass started) we
had 200 or 250 people, and now we are
over 600 people every Sunday. On Easter
Sunday, we opened up the whole gym,
and we filled it up completely.”
Rodríguez and her husband, Rolando,
set up the altar before each Mass and
make sure all the lectors and ministers
are ready to go before Father Puigbó or
Father Jeb Donelan, All Saints parochial
vicar, arrive. After Mass, participants stay
to stack up chairs and clean up the gym.
“They have a lot of initiative,” she said.
“We feel united.”
The community of Catholics keeps
growing. Members of a Bible study
group go door to door in Manassas Park
to invite Hispanics to come to Mass.
Holding his daughter, Ashley, Gabriel
Medina said having the chance to go to
Mass a block away from his house is more
convenient. His wife, Diana Mandujano,
who is expecting their second daughter,
said that the early time also allows them
to spend the afternoon with the family.
Olga Vallejo, parishioner of All Saints,
said that she had been looking for an
early Mass so she can “offer the first
hours of Sunday to the Lord.”
As the community grows, people have
formed youth groups, ministries and an
evangelizing group that meets for more
than two hours every Friday to deepen the
faith of the participants and their families.
Father Puigbó said the community is
overjoyed because everybody is finding
their place in ministry. At the end of
one homily, Father Puigbó emphasized
that being “living stone” and fulfilling
the mission that every disciple of Jesus
is given, goes beyond participating in a
pastoral ministry but having Christ influence
the very marrow of our lives.
“What´s important is the fertile terrain
of our life that is starting to bear fruit,”
Father Puigbó said. “The glory is His,
and our lives are to serve Him.