Mitchelle Stephenson — For The Capital Gary Gunde, 10, Madelyn Arnold, 10, and Glenn Seward, 10, of Holy Family Catholic Church in Davidsonville attack the Rev. Joe Cosgrove of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Edgewater during an epic water pistol battle held during the Tri-Parish Picnic on Sunday.
The three south county Catholic parishes met at Camp Barrett in Crownsville on Sunday for the second annual Tri-Parish Mass and Picnic.
The event attracted over 1,000 parishioners from Holy Family in Davidsonville, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Edgewater and Our Lady of Sorrows in West River.
The idea of a picnic was deemed necessary when last year the Baltimore diocese tasked the three churches with developing different scenarios in the event that there might not be a priest available to minister each parish. A committee was then formed made up of six members from each parish.
The group currently meets once a month for several hours and tries to develop scenarios. For example, "What if there were two priests for the three parishes?" Or, "What if there were one priest for the three?"
Mary Catherine Haines is one of the representatives on the committee from Our Lady of Sorrows.
"We got a two-year time line to make our recommendations," she saidof the committee.
"We are looking at scenarios generically, not if a specific priest were to go," she said.
The Rev. Mark Logue added that it isn't likely that the church would remove one of the priests. He said it would be more probable that someone might retire at some point, leaving a vacancy.
As the committee began to undertake its work, they thought it would be a good idea to get the three parishes together so that everyone could get a feel for each church.
And so last year the first tri-parish picnic was born. It also took place at the Elks' Camp Barrett site.
They had volunteers get together to plan the event. Planning took seven months. The picnic organizers were: from our Lady of Sorrows, Mary Catherine Haines and Adele Hook; from Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Marian Creveling and Jennifer Galloway; and from Holy Family, the largest of the three parishes, Laura Benso, Kathy Elder, Barbara Zukowski and Joan Jenkins.
This year, the planning group expanded on their original idea, moving the Mass to an earlier time, and adding children's races, plus activities, like the rock wall and "adreneline rush," an inflatable play structure.
That was on top of the plethora of activities they brought back from last year: a moon bounce, the swimming pool, pony rides and a zip line to name a few.
The Rev. Joe Cosgrove of Our Lady of Perpetual Help had the brilliant idea of arming the children with water pistols.
The committee took him up on it, and then committee members made the three priests custom T-shirts. Father Cosgrove's had a prominent red target on the back.
An hour into the festivities, Father Cosgrove was soaked, with children seeking him out for water pistol target practice.
"I deserve it since I came up with the idea," he joked.
The Rev. Joe Barr, the priest from Holy Family, had a T-shirt the committee made for him that said, "Aren't you looking for the other Father Joe?"
He was peacefully talking to parishioners in the shade of the picnic pavilion, far from the battle of water pistols. Unlike Father Cosgrove, Father Joe Barr was dry completely untouched by the spray of the water guns.
Ralph and Donna Sita brought their family out for the day. They are members at Holy Family. "We love coming out, it's a lot of fun," Donna Sita said.
The proud parents stood by and watched as their son Matthew, 10, got dunked several times while sitting in the dunk tank.
Matthew is a student at School of the Incarnation in Gambrills. She added that it was also great because "he gets to see a lot of his classmates, and some are from other parishes."
The mingling with those from other parishes is just what organizers wanted.
"After last year's picnic, meetings opened up a bit and more parishioners came out. We're really celebrating our differences," Haines said.
The event takes hundreds of volunteers to pull off because church members who step forward run most of the activities.
Joan Jenkins, one of the organizers from Holy Family, said that after last year's success, they didn't have any trouble filling the roster of helpers.
"This year our volunteers were more mixed, with people from all three parishes helping in all areas," Jenkins said. "It's all volunteers. That is really the beautiful part of it."
Erin Hook, 15, from Our Lady of Sorrows, came out to help with the face painting table. She counseled little Sophie Vallerio, 5, of Holy Family about the images available to her at the face painting booth.
Sophie's mom, Julie, stood by while her daughter took time to make a careful decision. "We came last year and had so much fun and I love the outside Mass," she said.
"It's nice to come together and celebrate, especially on such a beautiful day," she added.
The committee will put together scenarios to present to a unified meeting of the three parishes in October at a neutral location. Father Barr thought that it would likely be held at the Knights of Columbus hall in Edgewater.
"We'll all get together for the presentation and then we can get feedback on what we might have overlooked," he said.
As for the picnic, Jenkins said, "people seem to like it, so I hope we do it again."
Mitchelle Stephenson is a freelance writer living in Edgewater.
WOW this is so great. nice gathering.
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