Father Chris Ciaston, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle in Gurnee, talks to workers on the cherry farm. Two pastors from the archdiocese spent three days in July learning about and ministering to agricultural workers in central Washington state. (Photos courtesy of Rich Kalonick/Catholic Extension Society)
Two pastors from the Archdiocese of Chicago spent three days in July learning about and ministering to agricultural workers in central Washington state. Father James Wallace, pastor of St. Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge, and Father Chris Ciaston, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle in Gurnee, both took part in the July 9-11 mission immersion trip to the Diocese of Yakima with four other priests from San Diego, New Orleans and Hoboken, N.J., and a Catholic school principal from Hoboken. According to Catholic Extension, the mission immersion program seeks to renew the missionary spirit of pastoral leaders while helping them build a sense of community with each other and the faith communities they visit. “Our program’s guiding theology is one of encounter,” said Natalie Donatello, director of Parish Partnerships at Catholic Extension Society. “By bringing pastoral leaders together on immersion trips, we are fostering the opportunity for encounter and forging the beginnings of lasting relationships among trip participants, their parishes and the faith communities in our host communities so that they may all thrive in ministry.” The trips help pastors understand the situation in mission dioceses in the U.S., the pastors said. “I think that they want to build an understanding of what Catholic Extension does, but also to open our minds to those missionary places in the United States,” Ciaston said. Spending time in mission dioceses and observing and ministering in Extension programs helps pastors explain to their communities what Catholic Extension does. Since launching this program in 2018, thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving in Ministry initiative, Catholic Extension has hosted 410 pastoral leaders on 52 trips to various dioceses. They spent that time with workers and their families who follow the crops each year. July in Washington meant picking cherries, and that meant rising before the sun, as cherries cannot be picked when it gets too hot. “It was like 110 degrees, super hot,” said Wallace, who has been on mission immersion trips before. “You fly into Seattle and then you drive east. The water that comes off the Canadian Rockies makes that area super fertile, even though it’s so hot. … We were up early with them. The migrant workers have to be up at like 2 a.m. to pick the cherries before it gets too hot. If it gets too hot, the sugar from the cherries retreats into the trees and they won’t be as sweet.” The work means that children are left behind in the migrant camps made up rows of trailers or small cottages as parents work, so the diocese provides educational, recreational and art activities for them, in addition to spiritual care for all members of the families. “They teach them all different things,” Ciaston said. “When we were there, they were talking about different kinds of birds’ beaks, then university students taught them music. They were having fun.” “Music class, art class, it was incredible to see how these children just loved it. The church is providing that day care, then Mass in the evening for whoever wanted to go.” Ciaston, who has also done mission immersion trips to the U.S. border in Texas, said the migrant workers he met were poor, but better off than people crossing the border with nothing. The workers made up to $300 a day picking cherries, depending on the amount they picked, Wallace said. “There’s a real art to it. You have to be real nimble in your fingers,” Wallace said. “You have to twist it off a certain way so the stem is retained. It was really incredible to see.” “They were so fast,” Ciaston confirmed, adding that all of the visitors were extremely slow in comparison. Both priests were impressed by the involvement of Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson, who spent the whole three days with them. “It’s a real sense of being out in the mission,” Wallace said. “Bishop Tyson said we don’t just sit back in our rectories waiting for people to knock on our door. We go out to them. If they’re in the cherry groves, we’ll do that. “I’m in Park Ridge, and it’s an affluent community, but there are people working, and they need Christ brought to them. It gave me a greater desire to go to them.”
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