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Parish Resourcing Pastoral Renewal Dear parishioners - letter 2
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| Dear parishioners - letter 2 |
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Dear Parishioners, Last week I suggested that in the coming weeks we might use the Parish Bulletin to explore some thoughts in relation to the purpose and merits of a Parish Pastoral Council. As a backdrop to that, I would like to offer a quotation from a very insightful book "Secularism and the New Europe", written by Bishop Donal Murray and first published by Veritas in 1990. In this book he refers to the challenges of living in a society that has little reference to anything spiritual and where there is a common perception that we don't need God anymore. He writes: "The growth of science and technology has changed the way in which people see the world: there has been a loosening of moral sensitivity to certain issues. This can lead to a kind of blindness or deafness to the presence of God. Large chunks of our lives are lived with little thought for the mystery of God and with little awareness of the spiritual dimension of ourselves. We can watch television soap operas for hours and see people whose lives appear to have no spiritual dimension whatever. Secularism is not so much hostility to religion: worse than that, it is living as though the religious dimension of life did not exist" (page 28) Later in the same book Bishop Murray argues that the need to embrace the Good News of the Gospel has never been more urgent and he makes the point that stronger partnerships between priests and committed laity is essential in responding to the tide of secularisation that is sapping the joy from so many lives and leading to so much alienation. That notion of partnership between priest and people underpins the purpose of a Parish Pastoral Council. Unlike the Parish Councils of a previous era, whose primary function seemed to be concerned with the fabric of the parish and its maintenance, today's Parish Pastoral Council is more concerned with fostering the faith and spirituality of the community. In order to fulfil its mission, a Pastoral Council needs to be rooted in prayer, open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and formed by the Word of God through patient listening and reflection. In short, a Parish Pastoral Council is not just a decision making body that happens to pray, but rather a praying body that makes decisions. And many of those decisions will relate to the development of people's faith and the promotion of Gospel values. Such a task, within any parish, is undoubtedly a worthy one. With every blessing, Colum Curry PP |
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