Welcome to 2023 – Pastoral Engagement…

Dear Parishioners,

This year’s focus is pastoral engagement.

Our initiatives this year are:

The Health Initiative.

This has three parts: (1) communion to those at home, (2) pastoral visits and spiritual care for those at home; and (3) helping seniors (who need it) get through the Primary Health Care system or get back into it. The study will tell us if this is a possible pastoral outreach for us or a pipe dream. It is being led for us by Sue Gillespie, RN.

Alpha.

This is a process of friendship and learning. It connects you to others, allows you to meet new people, share your faith experience, and ask questions. Do you want to explore your Christian faith? Are you thinking about what it means to be another Christ? Are you wanting to connect with the parish members? Are you looking at becoming a Catholic or returning to Church? If “Yes” answers these questions, please get in touch with Donna or Meg from the Pastoral Team.

The Parish Telephone Tree.

You may remember we used this during Covid. It is a simple tool to keep people linked to the parishes. If you would like to help by phoning four people a month, please be in touch with me through the Cathedral Office.
Holy Communion to those at home. This ancient ministry began in Christianity’s House Churches of the first century. We need more people to take Holy Communion to those at home and in rest homes. Could you bring Communion each week to one or two people? Are we interested in this personal ministry of care? Please be in touch with your parish office.

Parish Systems

Our parish system, created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is in an organisational crisis, and our infrastructure is struggling to respond to the reality of the present day.

Faced with this reality, many laity and clergy still want to continue “business as usual” and shun the challenge of real change.

Since November 2022, I have considered the tension of serving three parishes and the multiplication of meetings.

I have also considered the workload of the Pastoral Team and the clergy, the repetition of meetings, and the structural thinking that perpetuates a “business as usual” model and inhibits future change.

I have pondered Pope Francis’ call to synodal decision-making, the distinct vocations of the ordained and the lay faithful and the purpose of these vocations.

Consequently, I have decided to

1) share my leadership responsibilities more widely,

2) begin a consultation with Kotahi Ano leadership groups looking at our leadership structures and communication of leadership decisions to parishioners,

Staying Connected

Staying connected to parish life is essential for the continuity of pastoral care. Sunday is the critical day of connection between the presider and the assembly.

I have decided to focus my Sunday ministry in Our Lady of Lourdes and St Mary’s Foxton and asked Monsignors Bell and Walsh to focus on the Cathedral’s Sunday ministry and Fr Vijay to work across the parishes with me.

This means priests will have a more regular Sunday roster, and parishioners will have familiar men presiding at the Sacred Liturgy. Staying connected to the Sunday Liturgy and each other is essential to practical pastoral life. If you know people who are not connected, who need pastoral support or Holy Communion brought to them, help us provide this ministry by lending your support.

Because the parishes operate across seven days, Pastoral Team members can work continual seven-day periods over a month without sufficient rest times. I will take Mondays and Tuesdays as days of rest and not be available except for funerals.

As the new year unfolds and the new school term begins, we all have new and exciting opportunities. As new people join the parishes, you are most welcome to participate and become at home.