Listening Circles Session Follow-up

As part of the process of forming a Parish Pastoral Council, thirty parishioners spent an interesting evening on June 29^th sharing ideas and listening to each other discuss the value of St. Patrick’s Parish in supporting their faith, and suggesting ways to build our community.

There were many positive comments about St. Patrick’s as a hospitable, caring community where people were friendly and welcoming; priests were accessible and approachable where the liturgy was prayerful and homilies relevant and inspirational.  At the same time there was a recognition of the need to continue to build on what is already happening in the parish.

There was a common thread of the need for ongoing faith formation, particularly adults; for an adult understanding of our faith and what it means to be a disciple; for creating a community that listens to one another.  There was a strong consensus of the need to reach out to those in need, particularly the poor, the sick and home bound, and to put the social justice teaching of the Church into action.

There was a recognition of the importance of prayer and worship both in participating in the Sunday liturgy, but also other ways of praying together such as Adoration, the rosary, praying with scripture.

There were many creative ideas and concrete suggestions to further build our parish community.   These will be invaluable in guiding a Parish Pastoral Council which will create a vision for future development.  Some ideas can be put into practice in the short term, some will take longer to implement, but all will be taken into consideration.

THANK YOU to all who gave their time to participate in this process.  Please, pray that the Holy Spirit may continue to guide this process, and that we will find people with the gifts to discern  God’s will for us as a community of faith.