From Fr Greg's Desk: Sunday 18th July

Hi everyone!

RGCP Parish Mission/Pastoral Plan. 

As you know, we are in the process of finalising our Pastoral Plan for the Parish, in line with the recent Sydney Archdiocesan Mission Plan, Go Make Disciples (GMD). 

Over the last month, I have published two excerpts from the GMD summary, from pages 5 and 7, regarding the 'Pastoral Reality' of the Parish and the world we live in, and also the 'Vision for Parish Life' statement of the Archdiocese. Our collective aim is to “transform the culture of our [parish] communities by faithfulness to Jesus' command to “Go, make disciples' so that our parishes become outposts of the Great Commission, making disciples who bear fruit for God" (page 5) and build up a 'critical mass' of evangelising disciples in every parish. As the Mission Plan points out:

“The presence of a significant number of disciples changes everything: a parish’s spiritual tone, energy level, attendances, bottom line, and what parishioners ask of their leaders... It is this vision of fruitful discipleship that the plan has been designed to support... It is to this renewal of culture for discipleship and mission to which all parishes and communities of the Archdiocese are invited.”

In short, we seek to engage that pastoral reality by building on the five foundations they've identified which coincide with what we have been working to achieve ever since we began our 'Parish Forums, back in Aug - Oct 2018. 

Today I have published a short excerpt about the five foundations on which our Parish Renewal is to be based: 1. Evangelisation, 2. Leadership, 3. Community, 4. Formation and 5. Worship. The summary document can be found at the following link. Click here Or you can type in "Mission Plan for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney Summary Version'' into your web browser, and the pdf version will pop up, which you can download and print for yourselves. There are also hard copies of the same at the Parish office, which you can obtain there, free of charge. As it is only 20 pages long, it won’t take you a lot of time to read through it, and it is well worth reading and studying. The three key texts to this document (which I have reprinted in full over the last month or so) are to be found on pages 5 and 7. 

In this week's bulletin, we explore what those five foundations are upon which the Archdiocese, the Parish, the individual ministries, as indeed each pastoral worker in the Parish, ought to build up their pastoral work. Next week, we will examine the method of revising our current pastoral works, with a view to proposing the focus for the way ahead, with new initiatives. 

The five are as follows, and can be found on pages 8 to 17. I would encourage you all to have a read through this summary mission plan. The strategies we will follow coincide with many of the strategies there ... it really depends on our specific circumstances as to what that becomes. 

The five “foundations for spiritual renewal” from the Archdiocesan Mission Plan are as follows:

1.  Evangelisation (pages 8 - 9) – carried out through words and deeds in three main ways - to (1) “share our faith beyond the parish with those who do not yet know Christ or have refused to let him in; (2) share the faith with infrequent Church attendees, encouraging them anew to a deeper relationship and a fresh engagement with Jesus and the Church; and (3) share the Good News in ordinary pastoral ministry to inflame the hearts of the faithful.” 

This coincides with all of the four focus areas identified in our present pastoral plan ... outreach, welcoming and hospitality, church ministries, and the youth. 

2.  Leadership (pages 10 - 11) – which involves the ability to influence, serve and move/lead others towards becoming and making disciples, and build up the Kingdom of God. This is done through (1) the presentation of a compelling vision of how the Parish can do this, (2) to recognise, call forth and enable the expression of various gifts or charisms, and (3) make concrete plans to bring the vision of the renewed parish to reality. 

3.  Community (pages 12 - 13) – creating a place in which we can all live and grow within a Christan community, since our following of Jesus was never meant to be individualistic or private. Community is essential for every other good: for building personal relationships and families; for the care of our spiritual health and of the poor and vulnerable; for education in truth, formation in morality, and the transmission and integral development of life itself. 

4.  Formation (pages 14 - 15) – to help us grow in discipleship and more effectively take part in Jesus' mission. Through formation we learn to (1) pray, to (2) develop spiritual and moral life, and to (3) respond pastorally in mission, discerning and enacting new ways to provide effective Christian formation in our changing world, and in the four principal areas of human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation. 

5.  Worship (pages 16 - 17)  – the primary source and summit of our spiritual life, where we celebrate and deepen in our relationship with the Lord, through the sacraments and especially through the Eucharist. This incorporates the celebration of our liturgies and everything that encompasses – including engaging preaching, music, hospitality and welcoming.

“Evangelisation with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelises and is herself evangelised through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelisation and the source of her renewed self-giving.” (p.17).

In coming weeks I will be explaining how we are applying these facets to our own Parish renewal efforts, and a few 'action plans' we have set in motion. But the most important part of all this is how each one of us, and our ministries, takes up the challenges they indicate and create their own action plans in line with these directives. I invite your own responses to these directives, and you can email them to me at pp@rgcp.org.au.

Okay, that's about it for now. 

Online Spirituality. Well, looks like the lockdown is going to be with us for the meantime, and so we need to make sure our spiritual lives are kept in order by at least weekly participation in our online masses, with Children's Liturgy activities (penned by Philippa Manley), along with the other online initiatives such as the School of the Word on Tuesdays nights (a form of weekly lectio divina led by Fr. Steve Drum), the fourth online Alpha course, run by Pina Bernard and Tania Rimac, amongst others. 

Your brother in Christ's missionary work,

Fr Greg