Dear Parishioners and Friends,
I am delighted to announce the formation of a new Pastoral Council for our parish of St. Patrick-St. Anthony. Ten members of our parish were nominated by our staff to serve on the council: Beverly Boyle, Emily Luna, Kim Nardone, Chris Kehoe, Marc Sherer, Luke Brown, Thea Montanez, Andrew O’Toole, Dominic Basile-Vaughan, and Anne Thibeault who was selected to serve as coordinator. Our Pastoral Associate, Pat Curtis, will be the staff liaison to the council.
The idea of creating a new pastoral council sprang from a desire to establish an organizational council or group to synthesize input, advise, prioritize, influence and inspire growth and development within our faith community. Further aid to our implementation of the council came from the School for Synodality, a Catholic organi-zation in Great Britain which produced a very fine pastoral council starter kit called “Reimagining Pastoral Councils.”
To quote from the Introduction to this document: “Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been seeking ways of living out the call to collaboration and co-responsibility in its community life.
Pastoral councils have been seen as one of the ways in which such co-responsibility can happen. Despite initial successes, however, pastoral councils have often proved difficult to sustain … The wide-spread problems of pastoral councils suggests that simply having better meetings or taking better minutes will not make long-term change. We suggest a wholesale re-imagining of pastoral councils in a synodal style, a distinctly Catholic model of decision-making, which draws on centuries-old practices of spiritual discernment.”
The first gathering of our Pastoral Council was a day of orientation held on Saturday, January 24th, in the Franciscan Center. We began with a simple round of everyone introducing themselves, since some of us were meeting each other for the first time!
One of the elements of a synodal way of reimagining pastoral councils is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the group. Prayer is an integral part of each gathering, which begins and continues with Lectio Divina, a form of “sacred reading” of the Scriptures developed by the Benedictines. Rich Broggini, a parishioner and lay member of the Cistercian Benedictines in Spencer, MA, gave us an introduction to the practice of Lectio Divina. Following that, Fr. Bill Beaudin gave a thoughtful reflection on the three attributes or dispositions members bring to the council: head, heart, and hands. Each of these elements is important, but not everyone embodies all of them. The head gives us the knowledge and under-standing of a question; the heart gives us the passion to address the question; the hands give us the means to accomplish what is needed.
Further discussions involved these questions: What brought us to this community? What surprises or challenges you about our faith community? Where does our community need to grow? These questions gave the group the opportunity to express individual concerns and dreams for our parish as we look to the future with hope and confidence.
Blessings on your week ahead!
Fr. Tim Shreenan, O.F.M.
Pastor