The Covid Experience Renewed our Pastoral Focus.
This is not to say it wasn’t a pastoral focus there before, but it is to say that Covid lockdowns, physical distancing and social disruption had an impact. They refocused us on the essential role of pastoral care for everyone and initiated new forms of pastoral care.
It was a steep learning curve, as I wrote in my book, Liturgical Lockdown, “we lost the presence of the laity at Sunday Mass and turned to online media’. (Liturgical Lockdown. Covid and the Absence of the Laity. A New Zealand Perspective (2021) J.P. Grayland)
Covid-19 brought an abrupt end to our established and habitual patterns of social interaction, pastoral care, worship and communication. As a result, Covid introduced a new term to liturgical theology: “liturgical lockdown”.
Liturgical lockdown brought our habitual patterns of worship and pastoral care to an abrupt halt. It changed the way we gather and how we communicate. It radically altered our presumptions of pastoral ministry and our parish community. Most importantly, it showed that the Sunday Mass attendees were the main focus of our pastoral work, and our main way of communicating was at the Sunday Mass. This brought a greater awareness of communicating with those who aren’t at Sunday Mass.
When physical gatherings were impossible, we turned to other media and the good old telephone. The Pastoral Phone Tree started. Groups of parishioners called others to say “hi” and keep in touch. We found out that our database was woefully out of date, and I even called someone on the list to find out they had left Palmerston North two years prior and lived in Hamilton. Sadly this has not continued, though I would welcome a group of people who are happy to telephone two or three parishioners a week.
The Pastoral Vocation
Our Pastoral Vocation is to embody the person of Christ for others.
The Vocation to Christianity is the source of our Pastoral Vision. Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist are the singular sign that brings us into this vocational relationship and sustain us in it. Baptism brings us into the Vocation to Christianity, and the Eucharist sustains us in that vocation.
A Community of Strangers
Easy said, but not always easily done because we are a community of volunteers. Although we are united in a theological vocation (Initiation) and in a theological vision (the Kingdom), we are not always united in a single vision of the Church. The most profound challenge for us is understanding that we are a community of strangers. Baptised for sure, but strangers to each other. It is the norm to celebrate sacraments with people we don’t know well or at all. Very few of us worship with our closest friends. This should temper our perfectionism and increase our desire to serve.
I know that we are a community of strangers when I see so many people walking past an offered cup of coffee on a Sunday morning, avoiding attending First Holy Communion Masses, whining that they don’t get Mass as they want it and when they want it. Oh, how human we are! No one is perfect.
Welcome to another aspect of the Pastoral Vision: Our pastoral work will only please some parishioners sometimes.
The Pastoral Vision
The Pastoral Vision is simple: all our liturgical prayer, private prayer, administration, organisation and resources and generosity is given to other people. We give these talents and gifts as a group to the world. We give all these give and talents through individuals who see the need and respond.
Asking baptised people to embody the vocation to Christianity is asking them to inhabit the vision of Christ, asking them always to consider, “what is of value to Jesus?” and “what is of need to others?”
Like all volunteer organisations, we can make ourselves available to help and, at other times, hold back our labour. Like all membership organisations, individuals participate at a variety of levels, some are in “boots and all”, while others are consumers of other people’s largess. We all participate for a variety of personal reasons. In this organisation, there is room for all people, and there is a real need for all members to embody the pastoral work vision. There is also space for people to receive rather than give because that is the spiritual place they inhabit at that time. It is reasonable that the seniors can rely on the ministry of the young.
Parishes do not survive without the generosity of many, each giving of themselves, each serving another. We are lucky that so many people give generously of their time and talents in many liturgical ministries, in works of care for the hungry and lonely, in visiting rest homes and the sick, and in taking communion to people. Others pray with people online, in the prison and in hospitals. Still, others are engaged in preparing children and adults for sacramental rites, and some in writing for the Newsletter.
The life of the parish is bigger than celebrating sacramental-liturgical rites. The Mass is the source and summit of the Pastoral Vision, but the church building is not where people live, and neither is it God’s living room where people come to visit. God’s living room is the world beyond the building, the world inhabited by women and men, boys and girls who are in search of meaning, purpose, community, connection, affection and hope.
We Pastor Each Other
For me, the notion that we pastor each other is central. This is why we have the Pastor’s Desk and many people write for it.
It is important to hear the voices of the People of God and to allow them to be heard. The special sections we have had on Health and well-being, Spiritual Care, and Donating to causes of Caritas are all important because they broaden the scope of our understanding of who we are and the diversity of our believing community. It takes a community to redeem an individual.
The voices of lay members during Advent giving the reflection after the Gospel on Sundays is another pastoral work. People are putting their faith and insight into the scriptures at the service of the community.
Pastoral Workers
Our Pastoral Vision saw us appoint a Pastoral Coordinator to focus on the relationship between the schools and the parishes. The priority of this role is ministry to school staff, students and families and strengthening the relationship between our schools and parishes.
Our pilot programme for the health initiative is another example of turning our focus to the elders at home and to their care. At one level, we’re not doing anything new, but we are seeking to do it in new ways, to frame our pastoral outreach in an intentional way that, hopefully, will evolve to meet the future we are encountering.
Our communications follow our Pastoral Vision. We need to stay in touch, and the best way is through digital technologies. We can offer more through the website than we can on paper. It is also more cost-efficient and more ecologically and environmentally friendly. Kotahi Ano Newsletter is read by many. Linking it to CathNews is designed to offer people a wider view of the Church than a list of parish notices. I hope it will become a forum for discussing and debating issues impacting us as Christians.
By recounting our story of disruption and innovation, I hope you will see that it brought both pastoral and liturgical upheaval and innovation. This is only the beginning of the change, not the end.