Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Parish Office Closed until Tuesday 22nd January, 2019
OLOL Piety Shop will be closed until 3rd February, 2019
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Devonport Friday Adoration: Recommences 1st February, 2019.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Devonport Friday Adoration: Recommences 1st February, 2019.
Devonport: Benediction (1st Friday of the Month) - Recommences Friday 1st February, 2019
Prayer Groups: Charismatic Renewal – In Recess until Monday 4th February, 2019 - Healing Mass sponsored by CCR will be held at St Mary’s Church Penguin on Thursday 14th February, 2019
Weekday Masses 15th - 18th January
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Weekend Masses 19th - 20th January
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport (LWwC)
Sunday: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone (LWwC)
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield (LWwC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Readings This Week:
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
Readings Next Week:
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs
about this time:
9th – 15th January
May they Rest in Peace
Treasures Old And New
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Every disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a
householder who draws out from their storage room things both old and new.
— Matthew 13:52
As we come to the end of this year, we begin a new theme for
the Daily Meditations. Over the next twelve months our focus will be “Old and
New: An Evolving Faith.” Today’s world faces so many challenges. Christianity
is supposed to heal suffering and mend divides, yet it has often exacerbated
the problem. Is such a religion even worth saving?
While there are unhelpful and even harmful parts of what has
passed for Christianity that we need to move beyond, I believe there are many
good, beautiful, and true gems well worth saving—and living. It is of no use to
anybody if Christianity is just a museum or an antique shop where we prefer to
collect old things for their own sake. Yet we can rediscover many good old
things that are perennially valuable. We would be foolish to reject them.
My life and the Center for Action and Contemplation’s work
are guided by eight core principles. [1] The first might surprise some of you:
The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point. We all need a North Star
to orient us toward meaning and purpose. As a Christian and Franciscan, for me
that is Jesus, who revealed the Eternal Christ. Over the next several weeks
we’ll become better acquainted with Jesus, whom Christians believe is the
totally inclusive “Child of God” who includes all of us in his cosmic sweep. He
is the Includer, and we are the included. We’ll then spend some time looking at
Christ, the eternal, ongoing union of human and divine, present in and evolving
all of Creation since the beginning of time, who moves that inclusion to
everything in the Universe.
Because Christianity is the path I love and know best, I
teach primarily through this lens. However, the Center’s fifth principle—We
will support true authority, the ability to ‘author’ life in others, regardless
of the group—points to the Perennial Tradition. If it’s true, it’s always been
true; truth simply shows up in various ages and cultures through different
vocabulary and images. Throughout the world’s religions and philosophies,
recurring themes point to humanity’s longing for union with Divine Reality.
There are many paths to union.
You may ask, why does Jesus say, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)? I’ll
return to this when we explore the difference between Jesus and Christ. But for
now, I’ll simply say that Jesus is not talking about joining or privileging any
group; he is describing the way by which all religions must allow matter and
spirit to operate as one, which indeed is the universal way for all people.
[1] See Richard Rohr, “The Eight Core Principles,” Radical
Grace, vol. 25, no.4, (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), 10-11, out
of print, see https://cac.org/about-cac/missionvision/.
[2] Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, Red Letter Revolution:
What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said? (Thomas Nelson: 2012), 7.
Struggling For Sustenance
This list is taken from the Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
We all struggle to not give in to coldness and hatred. This was even a struggle for Jesus. Like the rest of us he had to struggle, mightily at times, to remain warm and loving.
It’s interesting to trace this out in the Gospel of Luke. This is the gospel of prayer. Luke shows Jesus praying more than all the other gospels combined. Moreover, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples were intrigued by his prayer. They sensed something extraordinary about Jesus, not because he could walk on water and do miracles, but because, unlike the rest of us, he could in fact turn the cheek. He was strong enough not to give into coldness in the face of hatred, so strong that it threatened his very life. In every situation, no matter how bitter, he could be understanding and forgiving and never doubt that love and grace are what’s most real.
His disciples sensed that he drew this strength from a hidden source, some deep well of sustenance which he called his Father and which he accessed through prayer. For this reason, in Luke’s gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. They too want draw sustenance from this source.
But we see too in Luke’s gospel that this doesn’t always come without struggle. Sometimes things seem easy for Jesus; he meets love and understanding, and his ministry is joyous and easy. But when things begin to collapse, when the forces of hatred begin to encircle him, when majority of his followers abandon and betray him, and when his own death becomes imminent, then like the rest of us, fear and paranoia threaten to overwhelm him. This is in fact the essence of his struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, his so-called agonia.
Simply put, it’s easy enough to be understanding, loving, and forgiving when you are bathed in them. It’s quite another thing when your very adherence to them is making you the object of misunderstanding, hatred, and murder. And so, in Gethsemane, we see Jesus prostrate, humanly devastated, on the ground, struggling mightily to cling to a cord of sustenance that had always sustained him in trust, love, and forgiveness and had kept paranoia, hatred, and despair at bay. And the answer doesn’t come easy for him. He has to pray repeatedly and, in Luke’s words, “sweat blood” before he can regain his balance and root himself again in that grace that sustained him throughout his ministry. Love and forgiveness are not easy. Not giving into to anger, bitterness, self-pity, hatred, and the desire for vengeance didn’t come easy for Jesus either.
And that’s our ultimate moral struggle: to not give into to our natural reaction whenever we are not respected, slighted, ignored, misunderstood, hated, or in small or large ways victimized. In the face of these, paranoia automatically takes over and most everything inside us conspires to create an obsessive pressure towards giving back in kind, slight for slight, disrespect for disrespect, ugliness for ugliness, hatred for hatred, violence for violence.
But there’s another possibility: Like Jesus, who himself had to struggle mightily to not give in to coldness and hatred, we too can draw strength through the same umbilical cord that nurtured him. His Father, God’s grace and strength, can nurture us too.
In his famous movie, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson focuses on the physical suffering Jesus had to endure during his passion and death. Partly this has some merit since Jesus’ sufferings were in fact pretty horrific. But mostly it misses the point, as we see from the gospels. They make it a point to minimize any focus on the physical sufferings of Jesus. For the gospels, Jesus’ passion is not a physical drama but a moral one, indeed the ultimate moral drama. The real struggle for Jesus as he sweated blood in Gethsemane was not whether he would allow himself to die or invoke divine power and escape. The question was only about how he was going to die: In bitterness or love? In hatred or forgiveness?
That’s also our ultimate moral struggle, one which won’t just confront us at the moment of death but one which confronts us daily, hourly. In every situation in our lives, small or large, where we are unfairly ignored, slighted, insulted, hated, or victimized in any way, we face a choice of how to respond: Bitterness or understanding? Hatred or love? Vengeance or forgiveness?
And, like Jesus struggling in Gethsemane, we will have to struggle to continue to cling onto something beyond our natural instincts, beyond common sense, beyond our cultural dictates. Doing what comes naturally will not serve us well. Something beyond our DNA needs to be accessed.
The first word out of Jesus’ mouth in the Synoptic gospels is the word metanoia. Among its other meanings, it’s the opposite of paranoia. It means to trust even in the face of distrust. Paranoia is natural to us, metanoia isn’t; it requires struggling to draw sustenance from a deeper source.
Weekday Masses 15th - 18th January
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Weekend Masses 19th - 20th January
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport (LWwC)
Sunday: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone (LWwC)
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield (LWwC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Readings This Week:
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord –
Year C
First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Second Reading: Titus 2"11-14. 3:4-7
Gospel: Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
I slow down into my prayer time,
and breathe in God’s life and love.
I note my emotions and any sensations held
in my body, but try not to engage with them.
I ask the Holy Spirit to hold me;
to help me settle.
I read the Gospel passage prayerfully a number of times.
Perhaps I try to imagine myself within this scene, as John the Baptist is
baptising the people ... hearing his words ... noticing Jesus humbly coming
forward to be baptised by his cousin.
Can I share the people’s feelings of
expectancy?
Now I may imagine coming alongside Jesus as he prays after his own
baptism.
Can I ask Jesus to teach me how to pray as he did?
Perhaps I ask that
I might be ready, as Jesus was, for the Holy Spirit to be a more active part of
my life.
I take note of how I am feeling and share what is in my heart with the
Lord.
I sit in silence, resting in God’s unconditional love for me and all of
creation, and ask for whatever grace I need.
I finish my prayer time slowly, by
repeating ‘You (my name) are my son/daughter, the Beloved …’
Readings Next Week:
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time –
Year C
First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
Gospel: John
2:1-11
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
George Freeman, Christiana
Okpon, Maree Walsh, Joy Kiely, Robert Harcourt-White, Rose Grimes, Isabelita
Santos, Vic Slavin, Lionel Faustino, Marg Stewart & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Kevin Lawler, Carmel
Cook, Gladys Ballini, Nestor Manundo, Fortunata Paule, Pat Faulkner, Denise
Payne, Zeta Mahoney, Monica Piggot, Isabel Archery
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs
about this time:
9th – 15th January
Geoffrey Whitchurch,
Gerald Kramer, Bridget Richards, Bernice Vidler, Gerard Reynolds, Brett
Hunniford, Hilda Kennedy, Kelvin French, Richard Coad, Gerry Doyle, Berna
Adkins, Joanne Johnson,
May they Rest in Peace
Treasures Old And New
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Every disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a
householder who draws out from their storage room things both old and new.
— Matthew 13:52
As we come to the end of this year, we begin a new theme for
the Daily Meditations. Over the next twelve months our focus will be “Old and
New: An Evolving Faith.” Today’s world faces so many challenges. Christianity
is supposed to heal suffering and mend divides, yet it has often exacerbated
the problem. Is such a religion even worth saving?
While there are unhelpful and even harmful parts of what has
passed for Christianity that we need to move beyond, I believe there are many
good, beautiful, and true gems well worth saving—and living. It is of no use to
anybody if Christianity is just a museum or an antique shop where we prefer to
collect old things for their own sake. Yet we can rediscover many good old
things that are perennially valuable. We would be foolish to reject them.
My life and the Center for Action and Contemplation’s work
are guided by eight core principles. [1] The first might surprise some of you:
The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point. We all need a North Star
to orient us toward meaning and purpose. As a Christian and Franciscan, for me
that is Jesus, who revealed the Eternal Christ. Over the next several weeks
we’ll become better acquainted with Jesus, whom Christians believe is the
totally inclusive “Child of God” who includes all of us in his cosmic sweep. He
is the Includer, and we are the included. We’ll then spend some time looking at
Christ, the eternal, ongoing union of human and divine, present in and evolving
all of Creation since the beginning of time, who moves that inclusion to
everything in the Universe.
Because Christianity is the path I love and know best, I
teach primarily through this lens. However, the Center’s fifth principle—We
will support true authority, the ability to ‘author’ life in others, regardless
of the group—points to the Perennial Tradition. If it’s true, it’s always been
true; truth simply shows up in various ages and cultures through different
vocabulary and images. Throughout the world’s religions and philosophies,
recurring themes point to humanity’s longing for union with Divine Reality.
There are many paths to union.
You may ask, why does Jesus say, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)? I’ll
return to this when we explore the difference between Jesus and Christ. But for
now, I’ll simply say that Jesus is not talking about joining or privileging any
group; he is describing the way by which all religions must allow matter and
spirit to operate as one, which indeed is the universal way for all people.
As we’ll see, Jesus revealed a God who is in total
solidarity with humanity, even and most especially in its suffering. Shane
Claiborne writes, “Jesus came to show us what God is like in a way we can touch
and follow. Jesus is the lens through which we look at the Bible and the world;
everything is fulfilled in Christ. There are plenty of things I still find
baffling, . . . but then I look at Christ, and I get a deep assurance that God
is good, and gracious, and not so far away.” [2] Let’s be honest: that is all
we need to move forward.
[1] See Richard Rohr, “The Eight Core Principles,” Radical
Grace, vol. 25, no.4, (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), 10-11, out
of print, see https://cac.org/about-cac/missionvision/.
[2] Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, Red Letter Revolution:
What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said? (Thomas Nelson: 2012), 7.
Struggling For Sustenance
This list is taken from the Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
We all struggle to not give in to coldness and hatred. This was even a struggle for Jesus. Like the rest of us he had to struggle, mightily at times, to remain warm and loving.
It’s interesting to trace this out in the Gospel of Luke. This is the gospel of prayer. Luke shows Jesus praying more than all the other gospels combined. Moreover, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples were intrigued by his prayer. They sensed something extraordinary about Jesus, not because he could walk on water and do miracles, but because, unlike the rest of us, he could in fact turn the cheek. He was strong enough not to give into coldness in the face of hatred, so strong that it threatened his very life. In every situation, no matter how bitter, he could be understanding and forgiving and never doubt that love and grace are what’s most real.
His disciples sensed that he drew this strength from a hidden source, some deep well of sustenance which he called his Father and which he accessed through prayer. For this reason, in Luke’s gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. They too want draw sustenance from this source.
But we see too in Luke’s gospel that this doesn’t always come without struggle. Sometimes things seem easy for Jesus; he meets love and understanding, and his ministry is joyous and easy. But when things begin to collapse, when the forces of hatred begin to encircle him, when majority of his followers abandon and betray him, and when his own death becomes imminent, then like the rest of us, fear and paranoia threaten to overwhelm him. This is in fact the essence of his struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, his so-called agonia.
Simply put, it’s easy enough to be understanding, loving, and forgiving when you are bathed in them. It’s quite another thing when your very adherence to them is making you the object of misunderstanding, hatred, and murder. And so, in Gethsemane, we see Jesus prostrate, humanly devastated, on the ground, struggling mightily to cling to a cord of sustenance that had always sustained him in trust, love, and forgiveness and had kept paranoia, hatred, and despair at bay. And the answer doesn’t come easy for him. He has to pray repeatedly and, in Luke’s words, “sweat blood” before he can regain his balance and root himself again in that grace that sustained him throughout his ministry. Love and forgiveness are not easy. Not giving into to anger, bitterness, self-pity, hatred, and the desire for vengeance didn’t come easy for Jesus either.
And that’s our ultimate moral struggle: to not give into to our natural reaction whenever we are not respected, slighted, ignored, misunderstood, hated, or in small or large ways victimized. In the face of these, paranoia automatically takes over and most everything inside us conspires to create an obsessive pressure towards giving back in kind, slight for slight, disrespect for disrespect, ugliness for ugliness, hatred for hatred, violence for violence.
But there’s another possibility: Like Jesus, who himself had to struggle mightily to not give in to coldness and hatred, we too can draw strength through the same umbilical cord that nurtured him. His Father, God’s grace and strength, can nurture us too.
In his famous movie, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson focuses on the physical suffering Jesus had to endure during his passion and death. Partly this has some merit since Jesus’ sufferings were in fact pretty horrific. But mostly it misses the point, as we see from the gospels. They make it a point to minimize any focus on the physical sufferings of Jesus. For the gospels, Jesus’ passion is not a physical drama but a moral one, indeed the ultimate moral drama. The real struggle for Jesus as he sweated blood in Gethsemane was not whether he would allow himself to die or invoke divine power and escape. The question was only about how he was going to die: In bitterness or love? In hatred or forgiveness?
That’s also our ultimate moral struggle, one which won’t just confront us at the moment of death but one which confronts us daily, hourly. In every situation in our lives, small or large, where we are unfairly ignored, slighted, insulted, hated, or victimized in any way, we face a choice of how to respond: Bitterness or understanding? Hatred or love? Vengeance or forgiveness?
And, like Jesus struggling in Gethsemane, we will have to struggle to continue to cling onto something beyond our natural instincts, beyond common sense, beyond our cultural dictates. Doing what comes naturally will not serve us well. Something beyond our DNA needs to be accessed.
The first word out of Jesus’ mouth in the Synoptic gospels is the word metanoia. Among its other meanings, it’s the opposite of paranoia. It means to trust even in the face of distrust. Paranoia is natural to us, metanoia isn’t; it requires struggling to draw sustenance from a deeper source.
This article is from the blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timonium, Maryland. You can find the original blog here
As we ring in the New Year I am thinking about some of the things I’ll be working on in the coming months. Here are some of my thoughts and hopes, in no particular order.
Message Series
We are looking forward to some interesting and exciting message series this winter and spring beginning this weekend with a series titled “Unexpected.” The series will take a long look at life’s unexpected surprises, good and bad, and how we survive and thrive through them. This could be the perfect series to invite a friend. Great new series are also planned for Lent and Easter.
40 Hours of Prayer
Once again this year we’re kicking off our Lenten observance with the amazing experience of 40 continuous hours of praise and prayer. It all gets started on Ash Wednesday, March 6. Plan now to take some time to make this Lent something special by starting it off as part of this powerful experience.
Campus Planning
On Easter Sunday we’ll be inaugurating our beautiful new balcony in our sanctuary. This space will seat an additional 500 people, for a total capacity of 1500. Of course we still have to fill those seats, which means doubling down on our “Invest & Invite” strategy.
This summer we will be undertaking outdoor campus projects too. These will include modifications and enhancements to our parking as well as some landscaping around the new building that we deferred at the time of construction, in view of the budget.
Staff Development
Though still to be planned, there will be several opportunities for staff development in the coming year, both for the entire team, as well as our Strategic Leadership Team. We have a great and growing staff, if you want to be a part of it, we’re hiring. Check it out at https://www.churchnativity.com/our-team/
Rebuilt
After launching a beautiful new website for Rebuilt in 2018 (https://rebuiltparish.com/) we are planning to expand our reach with other parishes in 2019. We are most excited about 4 one-day regional conferences now on the schedule, smaller versions of our Rebuilt Conference (which will not be offered in 2019).
This month we’re submitting to our editor at AVE Maria Press the completed manuscript for our upcoming book, ChurchMoney, which will be published in October. It’s all about our story, what happened to us and what we learned about raising money in a parish and the connection of giving to growing a healthy parish.
We will still be traveling from time to time for the book, including California, New York, and further afield, in Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, and Switzerland, speaking to parishes and diocese that are looking to rebuild.
That’s a part of my plan for 2019.
How To Be Grateful
‘Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult,’ wrote G.K. Chesterton. Luckily, St Ignatius is on hand to help us to cultivate gratitude, so that our hearts may be disposed ‘to receive more, to appreciate more, to love and be loved more.’ Sarah Broscombe views gratitude through psychological, spiritual and Ignatian lenses, helping us to see how and why growing in gratitude is a priority as well as a joy. Sarah is a freelance trainer, facilitator, retreat guide and coach, from the UK but now mainly working internationally. Her connection with the Jesuits began in 2002 in the field of social justice, then international development, and is now in the fields of leadership and spirituality.
This article is from the blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timonium, Maryland. You can find the original blog here
As we ring in the New Year I am thinking about some of the things I’ll be working on in the coming months. Here are some of my thoughts and hopes, in no particular order.
Message Series
We are looking forward to some interesting and exciting message series this winter and spring beginning this weekend with a series titled “Unexpected.” The series will take a long look at life’s unexpected surprises, good and bad, and how we survive and thrive through them. This could be the perfect series to invite a friend. Great new series are also planned for Lent and Easter.
40 Hours of Prayer
Once again this year we’re kicking off our Lenten observance with the amazing experience of 40 continuous hours of praise and prayer. It all gets started on Ash Wednesday, March 6. Plan now to take some time to make this Lent something special by starting it off as part of this powerful experience.
Campus Planning
On Easter Sunday we’ll be inaugurating our beautiful new balcony in our sanctuary. This space will seat an additional 500 people, for a total capacity of 1500. Of course we still have to fill those seats, which means doubling down on our “Invest & Invite” strategy.
This summer we will be undertaking outdoor campus projects too. These will include modifications and enhancements to our parking as well as some landscaping around the new building that we deferred at the time of construction, in view of the budget.
Staff Development
Though still to be planned, there will be several opportunities for staff development in the coming year, both for the entire team, as well as our Strategic Leadership Team. We have a great and growing staff, if you want to be a part of it, we’re hiring. Check it out at https://www.churchnativity.com/our-team/
Rebuilt
After launching a beautiful new website for Rebuilt in 2018 (https://rebuiltparish.com/) we are planning to expand our reach with other parishes in 2019. We are most excited about 4 one-day regional conferences now on the schedule, smaller versions of our Rebuilt Conference (which will not be offered in 2019).
This month we’re submitting to our editor at AVE Maria Press the completed manuscript for our upcoming book, ChurchMoney, which will be published in October. It’s all about our story, what happened to us and what we learned about raising money in a parish and the connection of giving to growing a healthy parish.
We will still be traveling from time to time for the book, including California, New York, and further afield, in Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, and Switzerland, speaking to parishes and diocese that are looking to rebuild.
That’s a part of my plan for 2019.
As we ring in the New Year I am thinking about some of the things I’ll be working on in the coming months. Here are some of my thoughts and hopes, in no particular order.
Message Series
We are looking forward to some interesting and exciting message series this winter and spring beginning this weekend with a series titled “Unexpected.” The series will take a long look at life’s unexpected surprises, good and bad, and how we survive and thrive through them. This could be the perfect series to invite a friend. Great new series are also planned for Lent and Easter.
40 Hours of Prayer
Once again this year we’re kicking off our Lenten observance with the amazing experience of 40 continuous hours of praise and prayer. It all gets started on Ash Wednesday, March 6. Plan now to take some time to make this Lent something special by starting it off as part of this powerful experience.
Campus Planning
On Easter Sunday we’ll be inaugurating our beautiful new balcony in our sanctuary. This space will seat an additional 500 people, for a total capacity of 1500. Of course we still have to fill those seats, which means doubling down on our “Invest & Invite” strategy.
This summer we will be undertaking outdoor campus projects too. These will include modifications and enhancements to our parking as well as some landscaping around the new building that we deferred at the time of construction, in view of the budget.
Staff Development
Though still to be planned, there will be several opportunities for staff development in the coming year, both for the entire team, as well as our Strategic Leadership Team. We have a great and growing staff, if you want to be a part of it, we’re hiring. Check it out at https://www.churchnativity.com/our-team/
Rebuilt
After launching a beautiful new website for Rebuilt in 2018 (https://rebuiltparish.com/) we are planning to expand our reach with other parishes in 2019. We are most excited about 4 one-day regional conferences now on the schedule, smaller versions of our Rebuilt Conference (which will not be offered in 2019).
This month we’re submitting to our editor at AVE Maria Press the completed manuscript for our upcoming book, ChurchMoney, which will be published in October. It’s all about our story, what happened to us and what we learned about raising money in a parish and the connection of giving to growing a healthy parish.
We will still be traveling from time to time for the book, including California, New York, and further afield, in Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, and Switzerland, speaking to parishes and diocese that are looking to rebuild.
That’s a part of my plan for 2019.
How To Be Grateful
‘Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult,’ wrote G.K. Chesterton. Luckily, St Ignatius is on hand to help us to cultivate gratitude, so that our hearts may be disposed ‘to receive more, to appreciate more, to love and be loved more.’ Sarah Broscombe views gratitude through psychological, spiritual and Ignatian lenses, helping us to see how and why growing in gratitude is a priority as well as a joy. Sarah is a freelance trainer, facilitator, retreat guide and coach, from the UK but now mainly working internationally. Her connection with the Jesuits began in 2002 in the field of social justice, then international development, and is now in the fields of leadership and spirituality.
Virtually every language has words for it, and all the world religions encourage it.[1] Positive psychology is researching its sources, attributes and impact, and popular psychology is extolling its virtues. Gratitude, long understood as a spiritual heavyweight, is now known to be a psychological heavyweight, too. But why? What is it? Why is it important? And how can we use St Ignatius Loyola’s insights to cultivate gratitude in our lives?
Virtually every language has words for it, and all the world religions encourage it.[1] Positive psychology is researching its sources, attributes and impact, and popular psychology is extolling its virtues. Gratitude, long understood as a spiritual heavyweight, is now known to be a psychological heavyweight, too. But why? What is it? Why is it important? And how can we use St Ignatius Loyola’s insights to cultivate gratitude in our lives?
What is gratitude?
Find out what Gratitude is by clicking here to find the complete article on the ThinkingFaith.org website
Find out what Gratitude is by clicking here to find the complete article on the ThinkingFaith.org website
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