‘RENEWING OUR PARISH TOGETHER’

Time moves on. Trite but true. True for each of us and true for our parish. 

I arrived in the parish in January 2018.  In June that year we had a Parish Assembly. The aim was the formation of a new Parish Pastoral Council and renewal of the Parish Finance Council.  Those aims were realised and good things happened. 

Then in 2020 COVID hit.  After consultation, we consolidated all parish liturgies at Holy Trinity and more recently we leased Ss Peter and Paul Church to the Latin Mass Community of Canberra.  For some years the Parish Finance Council have been in discussion with Marymead-CatholicCare (the Archdiocese’s social welfare arm) to construct, with the support of the ACT Government, 50+affordable housing units on the site of the presbytery and parish office.  The hope is to commence construction in 2026; the location of the presbytery and parish office are yet to be determined. 

Meanwhile, in 2021 and 2022 the Australian Church held the two sessions of the Plenary Council, the decrees of which will be ratified next year following the second session in October of the international ‘Synod on Synodality’ (‘Walking Together’) called by Pope Francis.  Archbishop Christopher is keen for the discernment model foundational to ‘synodality’ to permeate all aspects of Church life in our archdiocese.  He called for a ‘Year of the Holy Spirit’ which will culminate in an in- person and online Archdiocesan Assembly from 18-20 October. 

Locally, your Parish Pastoral Council (PPC), under the title of Renewing Our Parish Together, will seek to engage with you by way of conversations and a parish expo prior to the Archdiocesan Assembly and then a Parish Assembly of our own on Sunday, 17 November.  The PPC will be assisted by Philomena (‘Phil’) Billington, a native of the archdiocese and a nationally recognised pastoral consultant and educator. 

In view of these proposals, today’s Gospel could not be more appropriate.  Jesus fails to evoke a response of faith in those from his home town.  Jesuit Scripture scholar Brendan Byrne comments: “The episode shows that the greatest enemy to faith can simply be “familiarity’: a refusal to believe that God’s presence and God’s power could come to us in so familiar a form as the person next door”.  Or next to you in the pew.  To be clear Nazareth was an insignificant town (cf. John 1:46), but here the Son of God became human.  “Perhaps we have to identify and name “the Nazareth” in our own selves” (ibid).  

I invite you to join me in praying for a deeper awareness of God’s presence in our lives.  There is much graced experience and wisdom in our parish.  The PPC will seek to build on that at the end of this month.  More to come! 

                                                                                                                                 Fr John