The principal celebrant for this Mass at Our Lady of Dolours, Chatswood, was Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington.
 
The readings were mostly taken from Saturday Week 22 Ordinary Time Year II, with the Proper for the feast day of St Gregory the Great.
 
Opening hymn: Sing a New Church (to Beethoven's tune of 'Come Sing a Song of Joy…')
 
Cardinal Wuerl : We gather together for the Eucharist, our source of faith and energy, our purpose and our reason for all that we do.

The first reading was from 1 Corinthians 4: 6-15, a passage where St Paul asks us to keep to what is written, and to remember that all we have has been given to us so that there is no cause for boasting. He reminds us that as apostles poor treatment is expected, and that we are to pay back with a blessing.
 
The responsorial psalm was part of Psalm 95(96), which includes 'Sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless His Name.' taken from the readings for St Gregory the Great, with the sung response 'Proclaim, proclaim, proclaim His marvellous deeds to all the nations.'
 
The Gospel reading was from Luke 6: 1-5 about Jesus walking through the cornfields with his disciples on the Sabbath, and getting into trouble because the disciples were doing 'work' on the Sabbath by picking the ears of corn and eating them.
 
Cardinal Wuerl
My brother bishops, priests, religious, and brothers and sisters in the Lord, I want to express to you my gratitude for participating in this Conference with you, and for the intensity of your commitment. Today we celebrate the feast of St Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church, a great inspiration for his day and age. His Book of Pastoral Rule written to help bishops in their ministry still inspires us today. He was the Pope who used the title Servant of the Servants of God for the first time. How do you carry the Gospel into the world in which we live? In the Gospel we hear Jesus say that 'The Son of Man is master of the Sabbath', helping His disciples understand who He is. What does Jesus ask of us, as He reveals who He is? That we place our faith in Him. The Eucharist is the agent and power of our faith. We come to Mass to be renewed every day, praying to be open to the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit. Faith, great as it is, is meant to be shared. Jesus says to each one of us, 'You will be My witnesses'. Grateful for the gift of faith, St Gregory the Great sent missionaries out. We are particularly thankful for the missionaries he sent out to the English speaking world. St Paul tells us that we are born to faith through those who have proclaimed it to us, and in turn we become Gospel reflections to others. We hear the words of Jesus, 'You will be My witnesses', 'Proclaim, proclaim, proclaim', 'You will be My disciples'. When we respond through the act of faith we become active participants in the transformation of the world. St Gregory the Great challenged his missionaries to engage in the announcement that Jesus is Lord. How do we in turn bear witness to the people around us who are in need of the faith, love and presence of Jesus? That is the great task of the New Evangelisation. Firstly our minds and hearts must be renewed in the faith, continually, over and over again. Then in confidence stand, and calmly and serenely offer to others the words of everlasting life. Live it. Go Out. Share it. Pope Francis encourages us not to stay locked up in the comfort of faith, and to go out and share it. What does it take for each one of us to invite someone to Mass? A true witness will recognise that it is our turn. The same power of the Holy Spirit is with us to quietly, persistently, consistently live in the joy of the Gospel in such a way that invites others to share that joy. He is the Lord, we are His witnesses and the power of the Holy Spirit is His gift to us.

Communion Hymn: Take and Eat
 
Recessional Hymn: Go To The World (with the tune of 'For All the Saints' Sine Nomine)
 
………………………………………………………………………..
My response

For me this homily contained the key thought for this third day of the Conference: 'In the power of the Holy Spirit, quietly, persistently and consistently live the joy of the Gospel in a way that invites others to share that joy.'
​
This homily brilliantly distilled in a few sentences all that we had heard God calling us to do throughout the Conference. The hard part, of course, is actually doing it. May God help us.
……………………………………………………………………
 
In the next issue will be notes from the keynote speech of Bishop Nicholas Hudson about how to make our parishes oases of mercy.

The Summer School for Evangelisation (#sse17 #sse17pat) takes place for a week in January, one is held in Bathurst, others in Melbourne and Perth, and one in Paterson NSW (actually Tocal, a few kms north of Maitland). For the closing Mass at Summer School Paterson the principal celebrant was Fr Steve Fletcher MGL.
 
The Mass was for the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A, and the homily is relevant for anyone who has just had a 'mountain top' experience with God and His disciples and is heading back to the plain of normal life. As usual, this is the gist of that homily, and many of the nuances are missing.
 
First Reading: Isaiah 8:23-9:3 God's promise to the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali that great light and joy will come to them, dispelling darkness and shadow.
Psalm 26 with response, 'The Lord is my light and my salvation.'
Second Reading: 1 Cor 1:10,13-17 I appeal to you, be reconciled and be united
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23 At Capernaum Jesus began to preach and to call apostles.
 
Fr Steve Fletcher  MGL
 
Thank You God for Your Word which resonates in us, and sets us free.
When people are exposed to an environment of faith, and the teaching of truth, and begin to hunger for God in their lives, then they change from living under shadows to living under bright light.
We've heard truth in the songs we have sung, the lectures we have heard, and the conversations we have participated in. Yet He speaks to us no less in our day to day lives and personal situations.
We came here as sad sinners. We leave here as sinners, too, but happier ones because we know we are loved.
The Lord has already accomplished everything, and we need to believe and trust in that even if we don’t know how His work will unfold. It is the desire of His Heart that we would be the light in the place where we are at. We have come and drunk from the Heart of Jesus this week. We need to do that every day. Daily prayer is the oxygen of our lives, together with the sacraments. The Holy Spirit, source of life, needs to flow into our lives each day.
We can put emphasis on the people of greatness around us, but none of them will ever replace Jesus.
'That person you admire so much, he didn't die for you. I did. They are a vehicle of grace for you, but they haven't been broken, given out and risen. I have.'
Every day have before you the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. The power of the name of Jesus breaks every chain. If there is prayer, the chain will weaken and be broken.
The fruit of living in the light of Jesus is joy. The irrepressible sign of the Holy Spirit is deep abiding joy, a joy that can exist despite exterior sadness and grief.
Remember the words of Jesus, 'I am with you always. Peace be with you.'
When people ask you the reason for the hope you have, do like St Peter recommends and give an explanation: 'It is Jesus. He is my every thing.'
As we go, we do not go alone. Jesus is waiting for you wherever you are going to. Call upon His name.
 
Other messages shared by various people:
 
I saw each of us like tiny human pieces of Lego, and God's hands so big, so giant, so loving and so powerful. Very tenderly, and deliberately He took each one and placed him or her where they were supposed to be. Many were returned to what is normal, some were moved to something new.
 
We are sent out as God's agents, each with an individual Bluetooth earpiece. All your instructions for mission will come through this earpiece. Don't take this earpiece out. It represents daily prayer, particularly in the mornings, reading scripture and going to Mass.
 
We have been speaking of a river of grace, but Pope Francis has been talking about a current of grace. For our farm to have electricity, an uninterrupted electric current has to reach the farm. If the current stops, someone has to be sent out to find out where the current was interrupted and fix it. Each bit of the current is significant. Your choice matters. Every good choice helps the current of grace hit our world.
 
Pay out the nets with Jesus for a catch of fish. He will be with us, helping to do all the tasks, bringing in the nets, cleaning the boat, taking down the mast etc. It is not enough to do it today. Each day you need to have the readiness of heart to go out to the boat, and do it all again the next day with Jesus. Be bright and eager to begin each new day working with Jesus.
 
In your strengths and in your weaknesses, it is in both of them that you need God.

It is traditional at Summer School for the sharing groups to be called by a Saint's name and placed under their patronage. Who did my son get? St Anicetus. You've never heard of him either, have you?!

Obscure Saints interest me greatly, so this felt like a heavenly nudge to write about St Anicetus.

There are two good reasons to research and write about exceptionally holy men and women from times buried under the fog of history. 1. Romans 12:10 'Outdo one another in showing honour': someone who served as Pope is definitely worthy of honour, as are those martyred for their faith in Jesus. 2. Immense numbers seek the intercession of St Francis of Assisi and St Anthony of Padua, maybe a handful of people seek the intercession of an obscure Saint: just imagine the intensity and power of that obscure Saint's intercession on your behalf.

St Anicetus lived in the second century A.D, and was our 11th Pope, ruling for a few months shy of 11 years between the mid 150s and the mid 160s. To put that in context, St Pius X served for a few days more than 11 years and Pope Benedict XVI served for a little less than 8 years. Think about what those two achieved, and it is easy to conclude that the pontificate of St Anicetus was a significant one.

Now add in that he wasn't Roman, or Italian, and came from Syria. Then, as now, for a foreigner to be elected, he's going to be something special. His name reinforces that: Anicetus translated from Latin means 'unsurpassable, unconquered, unconquerable'. That might be what a great warrior, gladiator or athlete might call his son. But what if it was a nickname that stuck? That would make him someone to be reckoned with indeed.

To take on the role of Pope in that era, you had to have courage. There was a nasty trend of martyrdom to contend with. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was emperor at that time, and the latter part of his reign saw the 4th general persecution of Christians. Eusebuis is silent as to whether St Anicetus was martyred, Butler fence sits and says that if he wasn't martyred he went through enough difficulties to add up to one, and the Roman Martyrology has no qualms about calling him a martyr. The latter is enough proof for me and gives a feast day of 17 April.

St Anicetus lived at a pivotal time in the life of the Church, those who had living memory of meeting the apostles were as scarce as hen's teeth, and provision had to be made to preserve the patrimony of the apostles for future generations. During his pontificate, St Hegesippus who had written an account of the history of first 100 years of the church came to Rome. Sadly it is no longer extant. Was he called there by St Anicetus? Did he go there of his own accord to do first hand research? Either way, what a resource St Hegesippus would have been for sorting out what was authentically passed down by the apostles and what wasn't! He certainly stayed around Rome for 20 years.

St Anicetus certainly met with St Polycarp, a disciple of St John the Apostle. They had an issue to sort out concerning Easter. Because Easter originates from the Jewish Passover, it is based on the lunar calendar. Rome, the patrimony of St Peter and St Paul, celebrated Easter on the Sunday following Passover. The cities of the patrimony of St John celebrated Easter at Passover (on whatever day of the week it fell). After meeting and discussing the issue at length, both traditions were agreed to be worth keeping. What a classic 'both / and' Catholic solution! On the one hand we can look with hindsight and see the havoc that disunity over the date of celebrating Easter has caused over the centuries. On the other hand we can look with hindsight and be grateful for this precedent of preserving the patrimony of the particular churches without which we wouldn't have the Anglican Ordinariate, nor the Ambrosian and Coptic Rites.

During his pontificate St Anicetus had two major heresies to contend with. The first one originated with Marcion, who decided he didn't like the God of the Old Testament, and ditched it in favour of potions of the Gospel and the writings of St Paul. The second one originated with Valentinus and was a version of Gnosticism. Valentinus was an eloquent and charismatic teacher who held that knowledge – not faith – was requisite for salvation. He was selling a halfway position between the pantheon of Gods of the Greco-Roman world and the monotheism of Christianity.

To St Anicetus is also attributed the requirement that priests not grow their hair long. In part this could have been to make it easier to distinguish who was heretical and who wasn't. In part it could have been a measure to counteract the tendency of some towards taking too much care of their personal appearance. Shorter hair needs less time and attention than longer hair, and vanity is not a vice that males are immune from. Maybe it was driven by both reasons.

And to think that St Anicetus has been interceding before the heavenly throne of God for the needs and welfare of the church for over 1800 years!

Thank you Heavenly Father for placing St Anicetus as chief shepherd over Your church in his day, and for his good example to us and for his intercession for us. May his prayers help us to serve You ever more perfectly, to hold on to what is good, to reject evil, heresy and vice and to pass the deposit of faith whole and intact onto the next generations. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Redeemer. Amen.
​
St Anicetus, pray for us.

In this hemisphere, at this time of year, lots of young people are off to faith based Summer Camps or Summer Schools for a week or two. For a good many of them this will be their first such experience. So here's some advice from a veteran of many such Summer Camps.
 
Sleep
If you don't get enough of this, you will miss out on the best bits. The temptation to talk well into the night is strong. Resist it. If you want to see the clock go round on the last night, go for it. But get your head on the pillow and the lights out as soon as you can each night. Even a week is a marathon for your mind, heart and body, and you need that sleep so that you can get up in time for the 8am Mass with the unforgettable homily and won't snooze during the best lecture on Deutero Isaiah (Chapters 40-54) that you are ever likely to hear.
 
Service Groups
Whether it is cleaning up after lunch, toilet cleaning, setting up afternoon tea, or being on rubbish patrol, these are not optional extras they are opportunities for extraordinary graces. Don't miss them! Firstly there's nothing like sharing elbow grease for getting to know people better. Secondly you have the chance to mediate God's love into someone else's life if you do it wholeheartedly, cheerfully and extravagantly. One year a service team got matching t-shirts that made them look like high class waiters, went out of their way to serve accordingly and transformed the clean-up after dinner chore into something uplifting that both ennobled them and made the rest of us feel like the daughters and sons of God that He wants us to realise that we are. Clean bathrooms with extra touches (flowers, scripture quotations etc) mediate love too. But you will never know the amazing joy that comes from serving your brothers and sisters in Christ if you shirk your part in the service groups.
 
Sharing Groups
The bigger the camp is, the more essential the sharing groups are. It is where you get enough time and space for friendships to form. They tend to be groups of around 6 people, often matched for age and gender with an experienced leader. In them you get a chance to talk about what you have been feeling and experiencing, and to listen to how the others are doing. Talking often clarifies ideas and brings new insights, as well as inspiring your group members to pray for you, and you for them. The way God has constructed things is that you can't get really close to Him unless you also get close to the people He loves. You will probably hear a lot of advice to 'open your heart to God'. What on earth does that mean? On one hand it is giving God permission to come into our hearts and to do whatever He wills for our good, and on the other hand it is opening up to God by opening up your thoughts and feelings to trusted others. Both are needed, and sharing group is a good way to do the latter.
 
Meal Queues
Are a fact of Summer Camp life. On average you are going to spend at least 5 minutes queuing up for major meals like lunch and dinner (or waiting for the doors of the refectory to open). Make the most of those 5 minutes. Talk to the person next to you while you wait. Why did they come to Summer School? What was the most memorable part of last night's rally/ this morning's lecture/ this afternoon's workshop for them? Do they belong to a parish or youth group?
 
Lectures and Workshops
These are the meat of the Summer Camp, everything else is the potatoes. They are about drinking in God's truth, so that it sets us free (John 8:32) and alters our behavior in ways pleasing to God (Romans 12: 2). You will listen better and retain more of that truth if you take notes. Take notes! Be like the wise young Samuel and don't any of God's words fall to the ground (1 Sam 3:19).
 
Quiet Time
You will be getting sooo much input, which you will need to be diligent about finding time to process it. For some that might be sitting in a chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and mentally reviewing all that you have heard and experienced in the previous 24 hours and recalling what touched you most and what God might be trying to say through that. For others it might be finding a quiet spot and writing in a journal for 20 minutes before going off to the pool or the basketball courts. Having some written notes, not only from lectures and workshops, but also from homilies, 'chance' conversations, and prophetic utterances and images, will really help that process. Think of it as giving all the input seeds you have received, an opportunity to move from the surface of your mind and to begin to sink into the soil of your heart.
 
Communal Prayer
Apart from Compline (Night Prayer), and daily Mass, the other opportunities for communal prayer will largely be optional eg Morning and Evening prayer of the Church, the rosary, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Stations of the Cross etc. Get to as many of them as you can. Opportunities to participate in these things with a large group of enthusiastic people are few and far between, and they are precious. They are also opportunities to think with and pray with the mind of the Church universal, and that strength and solidarity is invaluable. Should you have got beyond the early heady days of conversion, they are the rays of hope and light when personal prayer is dry and arid.
 
Evening Rallies
These tend to have a pattern, God's love, Repentance, Healing, Seeking God's Gifts and Commitment – loosely following an Ignatian retreat model. Each rally is the crown and seal of the day, an opportunity to respond in song, action, and prayer and praise to all God has been doing in the interior of hearts and minds. Don't miss them. Sometimes the Holy Spirit takes over and the rally goes for a lot longer than the timetable predicted. If these evening rallies seem a bit daunting and strange to begin with, persevere with them. It will be worth it, far beyond the music and exuberance.
 
Hijinks
There will always be some who get up to hijinks: midnight snack raids, sloping off down to the pub, etc. Don't join them. Firstly they make you lose precious sleep. Secondly they disrupt the work God is doing in your soul. Reserve any wholesome hijinks to the last night.
 
Merchandise
Don't go overboard. If you must, get an official t-shirt. For the rest spend money on things that will give you long term spiritual benefit, for example a good quality bible, bible index tabs, books to pray the liturgy of the hours with, icons, writings of saints and popes, rosary beads.
 
Discernment
On occasion at one of these Summer Camps you might find someone who claims to have a personal word of prophecy for you. Very few people have a genuine gifting in this area. If something like this happens, go to those in authority and tell them about it immediately. Pay very little attention to any message like this unless it gets clearly confirmed by a reputable independent source, and preferably more than one. If God is truly speaking to you about a major life decision, then that message will be coming in consistently from several sources. Be alert to the quality of both the message and the messenger. There's lots of well-meaning folk who see a young man or woman who prays and decide to do their bit for the cause and ask them whether they have a priestly or religious vocation. That's very different to someone who has taken the time to get to know you and your particular strengths and talents and says, 'I've been praying about this for a long time, and these qualities you have……, ………….., and………. are the kind of raw material that good priests/religious are made of. This is a path you should give serious consideration to.'
 
Romance
People can and do meet their future spouse at Summer Camps. But it should not be your primary focus to 'meet the One'. This week or so is precious time to work on your relationship with God. That should be your primary focus. Growth in holiness is the best preparation to become a spouse. If there is a very distracting someone at the Summer Camp, notice and mentally acknowledge the attraction, but don't go seeking them out until the last night of the Camp. Do the most loving thing and give him or her space to grow in their relationship with God too.
 
The Return Home
The spiritual highs of being at Summer School can be wonderful indeed. Going from being surrounded by truly happy people who take God seriously to the local shopping centre at home where almost nobody smiles can be a weird experience. All that joy, peace and love you brought home from Summer School is likely to leak out of you over the week or two afterwards. That's rather normal. The best way to make a soft landing is to get a regular daily prayer life going, and to share with holy people close to you the changes you resolved to make in your life and ask for their help and support in making them happen. 

P.S. These tips are just as applicable for World Youth Day pilgrims.

Workshop 4E – Who do we think we are? Models of Parish that help or hinder our mission.

This workshop was led by Lorraine McCarthy, co-ordinator for Alpha in a Catholic Context, and a spiritual director with many years of pastoral associate experience behind her.
You can find her on Facebook and Twitter .

Working out who do we think we are is an important question, because we cannot communicate a clear vision or mission without agreeing about our purpose and identity.

Then we can ask 'Who do people outside the church think we are?'

Lorraine showed us a very good video-clip prepared by the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and the Any Given Sunday Project about the various reasons people give for not coming to Sunday Mass.

***Hopefully access to the video-clip link will be restored soon www.anygivensundayproject.org

They included: 'I've got to get my life together first'; 'They're hypocrites, who only care about money'; dress code; nervousness; 'I don't believe everything you do'; 'It is only for wimpy girly men'; 'My past is an issue'

We were invited to chat about these reasons, and any others we could come up with.

We have to build a big bridge of trust. Outsiders no longer look favourably upon us as a church.

Before we begin to welcome, we have to break down those barriers.

Trust is not the same as an active personal faith, but it is a step in the right direction.

We were then given three questions to chew on:
•Have you seen evidence of negative attitudes in people on the fringes of your parish?
•How is a bridge of trust built?
•Name one step your parish can take / does take to build bridges of trust in your community.

There is a difference between being a welcoming community and being an inviting community. Building trust has to happen off church property, eg on train trips, down at the footy club.

Who do WE think that we are?

The Church's mission is given in Matthew 28:19-20
Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.'

Making Disciples is the core mission statement of our parish.

Pope Francis encourages us in Evangelii Gaudium 25

I am aware that nowadays documents do not arouse the same interest as in the past and that they are quickly forgotten. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that what I am trying to express here has a programmatic significance and important consequences. I hope that all communities will devote the necessary effort to advancing along the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion which cannot leave things as they presently are. “Mere administration” can no longer be enough. Throughout the world, let us be “permanently in a state of mission”.

Models of Practical Ecclesiology: The Presumptions that hinder our mission

Parish as Social Club
We might see parish as a place for community building, and for leisure and social activities, but we have to ask whether in doing so we are building Christian community. Socialising and Christian Fellowship are very different. Socialising is getting people of like minds together, and excluding those who are 'a little bit different'. Socialising can tie up facilities and resources. Fellowship leads to people saying, 'look how they love one another'.

Parish as Funeral Home
Funerals are an important part of the provision of pastoral care. People with little or no church affiliation expect a funeral Mass and the use of parish facilities for refreshments afterwards. It takes some 6-8 hours for a priest to prepare for a funeral. If he has an 8am Mass and a 10.30am funeral, he has no time and energy for anything else. Funerals, although necessary, have the potential to cripple the timetable and energy of the priests, staff and people of the parish.

Parish as Museum
We have a fixation on the parish buildings and maintaining things of the past, the outward forms of our faith. 80-90% of parish finances can be spent on maintaining, insuring, heating and cooling buildings. The clustering of parishes that is going on means that some parishes have sets of presbyteries, churches and halls. Some of the funds tied up in buildings could be released for more staff or more modern facilities. Are our buildings meeting the needs of our current parish identity or are we doing the equivalent of marching around with pom poms on our feet like the Greek Presidential Guard – relics from times gone by?

Parish as Bank
When a parish is following a maintenance model, its primary focus is on maintaining the flock. Concurrent with this will be a focus on debt reduction and having money in the bank as a buffer. As a parish's average age of member increases, pressure is on to save now to make it through future times of financial aridity. But Jesus Christ calls us to a kind of 'venture capitalism'. If you are asking members to give of their resources to aid the mission of the Church, then if that money is saved in the bank rather than spent on the primary 'making disciples' mission of the Church –something stinks. Often we play it too safe, too careful. When a strong vision is presented, people will buy-in and donate. Disciples are raised up through relationships not through buildings, and you need the parish staff to enable the relationships.

Parish as a School
For many parishes their main missionary and financial focus is the parish school. It is not unusual to see a nice school adjacent to parish plant (church, office. meeting rooms, presbytery etc) that is in poor repair. Some parishes are contributing $30,000 per annum as well as the labour of parish staff members to keep the local parish primary school open for business. How did we get to this situation when the example Jesus gives in the Gospels is of teaching the adults and blessing the children? Traditionally (at least in living memory) we've been teaching the children and blessing the adults! To follow Jesus our teaching priority should be adults not children.

Parish as a Soup Van
In this model the parish exists to provide services to the parish members and to the community. Such a model risks seeing individuals categorised through the specialised care that they need, and not as people called and gifted to serve God's mission.

Evangelii Gaudium 183
Consequently, no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society. Who would claim to lock up in a church and silence the message of Saint Francis of Assisi or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta? They themselves would have found this unacceptable. An authentic faith – which is never comfortable or completely personal – always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better that we found it. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us, and we love the human family which dwells here, with all its tragedies and struggles, its hopes and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses. The earth is our common home and all of us are brothers and sisters. If indeed “the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics”, the Church “cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice”. All Christians, their pastors included, are called to show concern for the building of a better world. This is essential, for the Church’s social thought is primarily positive: it offers proposals, it works for change and in this sense it constantly points to the hope born of the loving heart of Jesus Christ. At the same time, it unites “its own commitment to that made in the social field by other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, whether at the level of doctrinal reflection or at the practical level”.

We are called to witness with both our words and our actions.

Evangelii Gaudium 200
Since this Exhortation is addressed to members of the Catholic Church, I want to say, with regret, that the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care. The great majority of the poor have a special openness to the faith; they need God and we must not fail to offer them his friendship, his blessing, his word, the celebration of the sacraments and a journey of growth and maturity in the faith. Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care.

We have to do both together, practical care and spiritual care for those in need, especially the poor. But a parish should primarily be where competent apostles are formed and sent out to bring Jesus Christ to the world through acts of love and mercy. At least some of our energy and resources have to be used to form people to use their gifts. The more apostles we send out, the more all that good stuff we are called to do is multiplied.

At this point workshop participants were invited to discuss the following question: Do you see echoes of these models operating in your own mindset or in your parish?

Archbishop Porteous: 'Evangelisation is not an ecclesial marketing campaign. The Church does what she does because Jesus has changed our relationship to everyone.'

Parish as Photocopier
This is a model for evangelising, discipling and missioning. Evangelisation is the work we do to draw people in, just like the photocopier draws in paper. Everything we do has to have the capacity to draw people in. Discipling is what we do in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), in schools, in sacramental preparation. Through the catechesis and sacraments people are transformed in Christ, just like the photocopier prints, copies, fold and staples, our task is to imprint Jesus on hearts and souls through their involvement and formation in the parish. Just like you can't get the ink off the photocopied paper, the transformation is meant to be permanent. Missioning is the sending out of apostles. In a photocopier, the paper that comes out the other end is designed to be a message distributed to many. Likewise, the parish is designed to send forth its members to spread the message about Jesus, the Son of God.

This kind of cycle is how the Church (and parish) works best. A healthy parish looks like this, with all three parts working properly. Are our parishes overheated, jammed or gathering dust?

Who wants change? Yes, everybody does.
Who wants to change? Nobody does.

What are the characteristics of a mission-driven parish?
•It is united in how it understands mission
•It regularly talks about mission
•It has multiple experiences available for those at pre-evangelisation, kerygma and catechesis stages
•There is a clear, simple path for discipleship, which is visible and understandable by everyone.

Stages of trust and curiosity
-are where pre-evangelisation is used
Stages of openness and seeking
-are where the kerygma is presented
Stages of discipleship and apostleship
-are where catechesis is offered

The game plan or discipleship path looks like this:
Invitation, Alpha, Alpha team member, Connect group member, Ministry group member, Discipleship group (to each year learn something) and Worship

All parishioners are expected to participate in the game plan at their level of interest.

The culture of discipleship contains an expectation of growth, where the relationship with Jesus and the faith community is nurtured and sustained.

Let's make Pope Francis' dream in Evangelii Gaudium 27 real:
I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with Himself. As John Paul II once said to the Bishops of Oceania: “All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion”.
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My response

This workshop highlighted what the missing link is: trust. By and large parishes are doing better at greeting and welcoming…but that only works if a newcomer has the courage to enter the door of the church. Too often we sit and wait for them to come, and forget that the first word of the Great Commission Matt 28:18-20 is Go as in 'Go, get 'em'.

So the question becomes, how do we get an outsider to go from thinking of church going folk as weird aliens steeped in stupidity and superstition and a danger to children to thinking of us as people just like them finding real help from God in the struggles of life? It is not going to happen through a letterbox drop or an ad in the local newspaper, it has to be living person to living person. Good quality testimonies on YouTube have their part to play, but won't reassure a viewer about the type of person they would meet if they showed up at church. That's where the dog walking lady who lives on the same street and stops and chats has an infinite edge, if she mentions she goes to church and once in a while says, 'hey, would you like to come too?'.

'Building trust has to happen off church property' and by extension where you naturally find lots of people'. That means we need something to precede kerygma opportunities like Alpha. St Paul Street Evangelisation teams are one way of doing this: http://streetevangelization.com/ . Having a table at the local once a month market stalls is another. Renting vacant space in a busy local shopping centre and setting up an area of prayer and rest, with a corner to listen to personal stories and offer intercessory prayer for needs revealed is something else to consider. Entering teams in local fun runs and walkathons for charitable causes is an option, as is getting together contingents for the public celebration of days of national significance (eg. a lone priest at the local dawn service on Anzac Day will make a much bigger impact if there are 30 parishioners with recognisable name badges with him, who mingle and chat with people they don’t know before and after the ceremonies).

The image that keeps coming back to me is of a car with the motor running, and the wheels turning, but not touching the ground. Unless the rubber of the tyres makes contact with the street, the car will go nowhere. Local parishioner to local person conversation that includes content about prayer, faith, Jesus, and the benefits of worship as a united community is what will get the rubber hitting the road...it might take a few times to gain traction…but that's what will get the missing link of trust active again.

I've seen all these models of parish (except the photocopier) in action. Chances are you have as well.

Parish as social club is a tricky one because generally we have to get to know each other first before we are comfortable to talk about what God has done for us, and is doing with us. Having a culture that expects one to lead to the other, and facilitates it; that's the goal to aim for. Beware of the subtle forms of exclusion: locations difficult to get to by public transport, functions with a cover charge that people on a very tight budget could not afford.

Parish as a funeral home is unavoidable, firstly because burying the dead and praying for them are acts of mercy; secondly because they are moments of truth. Depending on how the family of the deceased is treated, they will either grow in openness to God and parish or they will shake the dust from their feet and never look back.

Parish as museum, parish as bank, parish as a school and parish as soup van are part of our commitment to those of the past who built them up, and part of our commitment to those of the future who will benefit when we are long gone and pushing up daisies. The issue is whether scarce resources are being managed with a balance between maintenance and growth.

Surely we would all laugh at the business owner who didn't have budgets for advertising, public relations, professional development, and product research and development. Without them he'd he would see no growth and sooner or later the business would be insolvent. Likewise we can no longer view budgets for pre-evangelisation, kerygma, and adult catechesis as optional luxuries; they have to be looked on as essential costs of doing 'missionary discipleship' business. Granted, those budgets might have to start small and grow gradually, but they have to start!

I do really like the parish as photocopier analogy. It is very good for helping people understand the making disciples process; highlighting why each part of the process is absolutely necessary and working out which part of the process their God-given gifts have equipped them to serve in most. In this model, let's not forget where the electrical power comes from: co-operation with the Holy Spirit and lots of intercessory prayer. Even the best photocopier will be useless unless the connection to the Holy Spirit power source is switched on.
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In the next issue will be notes from the homily from the third Mass of the conference with Cardinal Wuerl, archbishop bishop of Washington presiding.