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Gallagher, S.J. A Parish Renewal Resource, Dublin 1979 First published by Charles A. Gallagher, S.J., in the U.S.A., December 1978. This edition published by the Pastoral and Matrimonial Renewal Center, 1023 Tenby Road, Berwyn, Pennsylvania, USA, April 2008. C o p y r i g h t © 1 9 7 8 , R e v . C h a r l e s A . G a l l a g h e r , S . J . C o v e r d e s i g n b y S t e v e n H o p e N i h i l o b s t a t : R i c h a r d S h e r r y , D . D . , C e n s o r D e p u t a t u s . I m p r i m a t u r : l%D e r m o t R y a n , A r c h b i s h o p o f D u b l i n a n d P r i m a t e o f I r e l a n d , D u b l i n , 6 t h J a n u a r y 1 9 7 8 . L i b r a r y o f C o n g r e s s Catalog Card Number: 78-68727 ISBN: 0-911905-00-6 Printed in the United States by the Pastoral and Matrimonial Renewal Center. Contents Page Introduction 1 Sacraments, Relationships, and Witness 4 Building Community: Why and How 8 Service Flows from Relationship 10 How Do I Come Across? 12 Our Great Need for Evangelization 15 Call to a Shared Apostolate 18 A questionnaire 22 A weekly Log 25 Building Intimacy: An Examination of Conscience 28 Introduction We will focus in this booklet on our mission: How Jesus is counting on us, and the particular vision He has for our parish family. The possibilities of this parish are immense. If we will just grow into a parish of people who care more and more deeply about one another, our joy will truly be what Jesus promised. This vision, this mission, is not something new or foreign to us. We dream of a great warmth and closeness to one another. We would love to go to Mass on Sunday looking forward to seeing one another as the high point of our whole week. The truth is: it can become a reality if we allow ourselves to develop a deep, loving concern for all our fellow parishioners from Monday to Saturday. That is really what the Lord wants for us. More than anything else about this parish, He is interested in how we love one another: how close we get to one another and really care about what is going on in each others lives. So this booklet is a chance to read and remember, plan and pray a chance to develop an even more loving parish than we already have. Our call to Belong and to Witness As members of the Body of Christ we are called to be disciples of the Lord and missionaries to the world. Baptism is the call from the community that says to the individual: Come and be a part of us. Baptism is not only for the individual, it is also for the community. What the individual receives comes to him or her only through immersion in the Body of Christ, the community. Nothing happens to the individual outside of that living body. Then, after Baptism, the community anoints the individual in Confirmation. This is the initiation into the state of Christian witness. Confirmation doe not witness primarily to the goodness of the individual much les a disembodied God. It witnesses to the beauty and power of that community of the faithful. It is a pubic vow to live the life of our community within our community. It is a Mandate from that community to speak in their name wherever we are. In calling someone to the sacrament of Confirmation, we the church are making a commitment to that person. We are committing ourselves to becoming involved in that persons life; to support the person; and to hold up the vision of the Gospel to that persons eyes. It is also a call from us to that person to get involved in our lives. The community is not just giving the person a gift; the community is calling the person to be a member of the family in full-fledged terms. Confirmation is a constant process of involvement that grows both ways. It is not just the person being confirmed who is making a commitment. The community, too, is making a commitment to that person. Only with the guarantee of our community commitment can we ask any individual to make his or her commitment to us. Sacrament of Personal Relationships So the sacrament of Confirmation should not be perceived as something accomplished on the occasion of the anointing. This is the beginning of the process of being confirmed among the faithful. It is not so much a being confirmed in the faith as it is being confirmed among the faithful. The witness of Confirmation is not to Jesus of Palestine or a mystical Jesus in the sky. The witness is to His body, these faithful people. Most specifically, it is to the people of your parish in their real-life circumstances. If we are not leading people to want to be part of the parish community, then are we really being witnesses? Confirmation leads to a deeper involvement in the lives of our fellow Catholics. It is a process of growing in relationships which is never fully accomplished because we can always grow closer. In a very real way, then, we would call the sacrament of Confirmation the sacrament of the parish. How well each of us lives up to our call to relationship with our fellow parishioners is what determines how well we have accepted that sacrament. At the heart of Confirmation is the deep sense I have that I belong to my fellow parishioners and to al my fellow Catholics. In this sense: this experience I am called to proclaim to the world in His name and this relationship of love we are continually establishing with one another is the very heart of the Gospel message our lives are to witness. The ultimate Confirmation, of course, will be when Jesus comes in glory and gathers us as a people. That is when we will be fully confirmed. We have to prepare for that day. The whole point of the history of the Church between the Ascension and the Second Coming is to prepare the way of the Lord. How do we prepare His way? By establishing love-relationships with the faithful love relationships for the sake of the whole community. If we are going to take the sacrament of Confirmation seriously, we have to immerse ourselves in Jesus description of the final judgment. Matthew 25:31-46 should be a Scripture passage we frequently read, listen to, and pray over. Am I Aware of the Call One of the things to ask ourselves is: Am I aware I am confirmed? Or better: Am I aware I am being confirmed by this community? If I have the notion that Confirmation is something that happened to me when I was 12 years old and now I am 42, I am missing the boat. Confirmation is NOW! I need to ask: Do I experience from my fellow parishioners a sense of having a mission from them, to them, and for them? Do I have any sense that I am calling forth my fellow parishioners, that I am anointing them? Our confirmation is a constantly involving sacrament. So the question is: Where am I with the sacrament of Confirmation now? How a I responding to the call to belong more deeply to the Body of Christ? Am I really getting close to the people of the parish? Am I making other people the recipients of me, a living sacrament of Confirmation? We have to examine how we thing of the sacrament of Confirmation. Does it really mean something to me? Do I focus on the fact that the Holy Spirit gives gifts that make me a living sacrament of Confirmation, at the service of the whole Church? Do I see that I have been confirmed for the sake of these others? How am I utilizing the Sacrament of Confirmation? How can my parents count on me? Am I one of these people who look on the Church as a service station where I get spiritual goodies, or do I see I am ordained to the service of the Church by my sacrament of Confirmation? Sacraments, Relationships, and Witness One obviously important function of the parish is to provide the sacrament for its people. But all too often, unfortunately, we leave that entirely up to the priest. Besides his personal presence (through which Christ acts), the priest provides a necessary objective dimension of sacramental events. But that is not the whole sacramental reality. This is a whole other dimension the experience of the community and this comes mainly from the people present. Unless that community is close knit, unless the people of the parish really belong to one another and care for one another, the sacraments in their full reality are not truly provided. In our sacramental life, the most basic way we can know and love one another is through the Eucharist. The Gospel of Luke says that they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. This is how we have to recognize one another as the Body of Jesus. So the sacrament of Confirmation calls us to recognize one another in the Eucharist. The Eucharist very definitely has to be part of our becoming self conscious, aware of being a confirmed and confirming people. We should ask ourselves honestly, Are the sacraments just rituals to us? For example: Are we receiving the Eucharist week after week without it truly affecting the quality of our life? To the extent we see them as mere rituals, we have to do something about the sacraments we share. These sacraments have to be, and can be, vibrant experiences which affect the quality of our daily relationship with our fellow Catholics. But to bring our sacramental life to the level of depth, we have to build a greater sense of intimacy with specific Catholic individuals and specific Catholic families. When we do not have a vibrant relationship with one another, it becomes most meaningful in our Eucharist with one another. The high point of our awareness of our fellow parishioners should be on the occasion of eating Christs body and drinking His Blood. See How They Love One Another A good question to ask is: Do people who are not Catholic see anything special or attractive about the relationships we have with our fellow parishioners? Or do they see us as simply another nice person who happens to go to church on Sunday? Do they really see that part of the very essence of who I am is my relationship with you, the faithful people? Do they see us as a people who break bread with the Lord and with another, or do they just see us as individuals who associate with other people because we happen to attend the same ritual activity. In a very real way, the Mass on Sunday should be for us a constant proclamation of Matthew 25: I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink of water. I was naked, and you clothed me. We should be looking around to see who is imprisoned, who is sick, or who is lonely. Some of us complain a about the coldness of our parishes, how impersonal the Church is. But we dont go any farther. We dont take any personal responsibility for the state of affairs. The whole point is to do something; to change this parish. That has to start by changing me. We are not going to change structures. We are not going to change habits or practices on an institutional level. But what each one of us can do is have a true conversion of heart. We become soft-hearted toward one another. We can become tenderized to every member of this parish so that the standard of loving which is established in our midst becomes as high as we can possibly make it. When we reach that level and can do it, - people will be fighting to get into this parish because we lo e each other so very tenderly. Involvement in Our Parish One of the questions to ask is: just how involved are we in our parish? Just how responsible are we for the well-being of our fellow parishioners? Do we take it upon ourselves to really be knowledgeable about what is happening in the parish? It is well and good to have opinions about decisions being made. But if we do not have the facts and dont really know what is going on, we are looking from outside in- and our opinions may be irresponsible. Besides being informed, we need to be involved. It is irresponsible to leave it all up to the priests and professionals in the parish. We hire a director of religious education for the parish, a music director, a director of liturgy or a principal for the school. Then sit back. If they come up with a program we agree with, one that fits into our time schedule, we go along. But if all we do is fit them in, cheer them on and support them from a distance, how can we say that were being responsible? The parish is not the rectory or the convent. The parish is the parishioners. We are the Church. We have to take on full-fledged responsibility and personal involvement in the direction the parish is taking; in the prayer life of the parish, in the liturgy and parish apostolates. Some of us complain of feeling restricted and powerless like little children in the Church. But isnt it true that many times we are like the husband who complains his wife is taking over and running the house? It often is not that she is being domineering; but there is a vacuum and somebody has to make the decisions. Somebody has to keep the house going, the children fed and cared for. The husband can point to her and say that she is making all the decisions. But how involved is he? So maybe the priests and sisters are making all the decisions in the parish. But who else is pitching in to lend a hand? If we really love one another, if we are really close to one another, we can put up with all sorts of deficiencies. The director of religious education may be highly qualified. The priests may be totally dedicated. But unless the parishioners are close to one another and warm with one another in their personal lives, there will be sad deficiencies in the parish The Way were involved Is What Counts We take on the standards of the modern world. One of these standards is: Mind your own business. Take care of yourself. Stand on your own feet, and everybody else do the same. As a result of this attitude, we carefully insulate ourselves from learning how things are with other people. That way, we dont have to get involved; we dont have to respond. In the same vein, we institutionalize our response so that we can keep from getting personal. The standard is diametrically opposed to our call to touch the Body of Christ. The call of the Body of Christ is to be personal with one another, intimate with one another. That is what we are running away from; that is what we have to change. It is not a question of going out and madly performing 17 different activities every day. It is really opening our eyes and, most of all, opening our arms and our hearts. Our vocation is nothing less than to welcome the other members to the Body of Christ and to tenderly care for them. What really counts is the way we get involved. For example, do we go to a parish gathering (whether it be Mass or a small group meeting) to touch and be touched by the Body of Christ? Or are we very, very insulated when there? It is easy, for example, to go to a parent-teacher meeting and be pleasant without getting involved. We can just chit-chat before the meeting, pay attention to the talk and judge whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. Then maybe we have a cup of coffee afterward, analyze the meeting and assess the speaker or plan that is offered for the school. Then we go home. That is easy to do. But how have we deepened our relationships with anyone? The basic point of any parish gathering should be to give us an occasion to love and be loved more deeply. Parish events are not something we go to in order to have something done for us; they are occasion where we can be more for one another. The well-being of Catholics whom we know and truly care for is very much in our hands. We have to recognize that. We simply must realize how important we are in Gods plan for the lives of our fellow Catholics. Building Community: Why and How Our calling as the Body of Christ is to become involved in the lives of our fellow Catholics and to let them become involved with us. That is what Confirmation and the Eucharist are calling us to. One of our key questions is: What does it take to be a Catholic? The answer to that key question is: other Catholics. In practical terms, the question is not, what am I doing with other Catholics? It is not merely, Am I nicer to them, or am I doing more things around the parish? The question is Am I really becoming intimate in the true sense of the term with specific Catholic families? This entails a great deal more than joining an activity, or doing something nice, or being part of a program. It entails nothing less than making a commitment to belong to these flesh-and-blood people and providing an environment in which they can respond. It means building a community in which everybody can have a sense of belonging and family experience, whatever name we call our parish. Living in this commitment to others is not something a person can do alone. Our ego gets in the way, and the patterns in our society offer no help at all. This is why it is essential to form an extended Catholic family. We will not internalize this calling unless we are really communicating with other people who are attempting to internalize it. This is something beyond what is normally acceptable in human practice. It is a deliberate acceptance of Gods will for us to be a people. This does not happen by itself. We have to take to deliberate risk of opening ourselves and the voluntary step of including others in our lives. We are living in a foreign land, surrounded by a cold, pagan world. It is very difficult for our people to live out the Gospel warmth and tenderness of loving relationships in a faith experience. We will accept the call of our Confirmation only if we see it as a call to proclaim our community. No one is going to make the commitment if it is seen merely in terms of giving good example, doing the right thing, saying the right words, or even preaching the Gospel as something separate from this community. Our response to this call is an all-out effort to love. A small step that can remind us of our commitment is to make the Kiss of Peace as Mass very deliberate and very practical. Really make the Kiss of Peace something beyond what we are expected to do. Try to have a moment of true personal contact with the people you touch. After Mass talk to these people, perhaps invite them to come home with you for a cup of tea. Building relationships is not done automatically. It does not happen overnight. As we go along, the important thing to ask is: Am I really, deliberately trying to establish this kind of relationship with four or five Catholic families in this parish? Realistically, we cannot be intimate with all the members of the parish. There are several hundred of them usually, maybe several thousand. But we can be intimate in little clusters if each of us has specific families we are intimate with. This does not mean going out to Catholics who are strangers to us. It means starting with the Catholics in the parish with whom we already have some relationship, toward whom we feel warmth and affection. If we make this start, we are already doing a great deal to build the body of Christ which is our parish. Service Flows from Relationship The whole matter of being an apostle has too often degenerated into the performing of apostolic activities. Of course in a caring community, we provide service for one another. It cant be something we do just because it needs to be done. We have to respond to people rather than to needs. The same activities will be performed, but they will flow from the relationship. The motive for our activity is I love Mary so much or I love Jimmy so deeply, rather than just Poor Jimmy is blind, or Poor Mary is lonely. In the latter case we are not responding to a person at all; we are responding to our own emotional state when we meet such a need Responding to persons Doing things for people can be an expression of our love for them. But all too often we respond to a need, not a person. We need a reform of what we mean by apostolate. If being an apostle only means doing things for people, the only people who get a response are those who have a need. One of the problems with this is that persons in need realize that the only thing that draws our response is their need. As a result, they do not feel taken care of as persons. So we really have to ask ourselves just how we are reaching our to other people, whether in a youth club or in a St. Vincent de Paul Society. Are we just training those kids because then need to be trained, or do we have any kind of relationship with them? Will they remember us only in terms of what we knew about the project, or will they remember us because of what they have experienced of us, what they know about us? The same is true in bringing food to the poor or visiting a hospital. Our best gift is our personhood which includes our personal relationship with our family and those close to us. We simply cannot give people all our money, time or talents. We have to give them ourselves and the possibility of a relationship with us. This is much more intimate of course much more probing, pressing and not easy to do. But it fits into Jesus Gospel call to make disciples of all nations. Not just to teach them, not just to do good things for them, but to integrate them into out lives. By being integrated into our lives people really discover Jesus. How Do I Come Across At a confirmation, the community is saying: We will be with you to support and strengthen you as your life goes on. You share the life of the Spirit with us, so count on us as your brothers and sisters. The first question to ask then is not: How is the sacrament of Confirmation taking effect in my life? It is: Can the people of this parish really count on me as a brother or sister? Can I really honestly say I am a brother or sister to my fellow parishioners? Secondly, and more importantly, do they experience me being such to them? We ask ourselves not: Am I doing enough things to pass the test of living the life of a confirmed person? The question, rather, is: What is my relationship with my fellow parishioners? Do they perceive me as being a family member in the parish? Do my fellow parishioners see me as someone they can rely upon? If the answer is yes, that still may not be the heart of the matter. At the heart of how they see me is the matter of relationship. If they count on me because they see me a s a good person who responds to needs something is still missing. The reason they depend on me has to be because they relate to me as one of them because we have a bond, a family tie; because we mutually know we are one body, the very same blood runs through our veins the blood of Jesus Christ. No Substitute for Relationship Too often we substitute service for relationship. Without doubt we have to reach out, take care of one another and do the right things by one another. But the greatest thing I can offer anybody is a love relationship with myself. Nothing I can do for another person compares. As Mother Theresa of Calcutta has said so often, the real starvation people suffer is not for food but for love. Starving people in hovels and streets of Calcutta certainly need food. But they need love even more. So do we all. One reason we find this hard to believe is because we do not think very highly of ourselves. We think we are worthwhile to other people only when doing things for them. But we are capable of loving and letting others love us. When we allow personal relationship to come into being, we fill a hunger mere food never answer. Service, apostolate and evangelization cannot be just a series of good activities for one another. My caring for a persons need has to be part of my offering a real closeness with me. For us Catholic, the me we offer to others is not merely a private self. Our self as Catholics is a family self. Our love relationships within the Body of Christ is at the heart of who we are. Our love for our fellow Catholics is an inseparable part of the personal self we offer to them. Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked these can be done by any good-willed person. The uniquely special thing we offer to others is our community life with another. How Personal Is My Involvement? Lets ask ourselves: How many people in this parish has a sharply improved quality of life because I am a fellow parishioner? The question is not: Am I pulling my weight in the parish? Nor: Do I belong to parish organizations, or am I willing to man a stall at the Festival, or work one afternoon a week? The question is: Am I really involved in the lives of my fellow parishioners and are they better off? Giving my friendship and love to people is much more important than giving my service. Doing a good job and being efficient are not unimportant. But they are not really the sign of the Church or a prophetic unveiling of Jesus presence in our midst. Efficiency and talent are fine, but much more important is a true love relationship. Getting Close to People There are all sorts of people we should be reaching out to within our parish not just people who have specific problems, but people who are there simply for us to know and love. The very fact that people live in our parish is a call of or us to reach out to them. Since they belong to this parish, they belong to us. We cannot integrate everybody into our life. But ask yourself: How many people have I included in my life because they are members of this parish? Every time we reach out to other people we discover new ways to touch their lives. For example, we go to somebody we know I sick or needs to be bathed or fed. Then, when we visit the person on those terms, we discover the loneliness in his or her heart. Or maybe we discover the richness in that persons soul, or some combination of the two. The closer we get to people, the more we are able to discern new ways in which the Spirit is leading us. It may be that we can honestly say, Well, were a middle class parish; everyone seems to be doing all right. But if we stop to reflect, we know deep down this just cannot be true of everybody. If we can say, Nobody in this parish has need of my love, we are just not close enough to our own people. Reaching out really doesnt take much, most of the time. As simple a thing as a smile at Mass can lead three weeks later to inviting a family back to the house for coffee. Helping a little old lady across the street can lead to discovering she has not been to church in 30 years. Our Great Need for Evangelization We may have good Catholic friends, and we may very well be growing in grace because of our relationship with them. They may well be helping us to respond to the ways in which the spirit is leading us. But unless our friendship with them has an evangelizing quality, we tend to become a clique. This is the case whether we are a prayer group, or a discussion group, or a Scripture study class. When we sit down and really talk with our Catholic friends, there has to be a note of reaching out beyond that particular group. There has to be a note of reaching out beyond that particular group. There has to be a willingness to plan out how we are going to spend our love on others in the parish. Otherwise, our relationship turns inward and tends to become narrow and restrictive. It tends to exclude outsiders. No matter how much we may profit personally from the group, no matter how pleased with it we may be, we are missing the point of what we are all about as Catholic. Parish Power In his encyclical letter On Evangelization in the Modern World, Pope Paul VI made it clear that if we are not going out and evangelizing, it is because we have not been evangelized ourselves. That applies just as much to a group as it does to an individual. It really does not make any difference how spiritual, hard-working or close the group is. If it is not reaching outside itself it simply has not been evangelized. A lot of times we get together with our Catholic friends, down some beer and gossip back and forth or talk about current events. We need to recognize we are the Body of Christ not just at Mass on Sunday or at a formal meeting, but always. Anytime we get together, there should be an evangelizing. This doesnt mean we dont have fun and enjoyment; if were not human we should recognize a power in us a power for good which our parish needs. The beauty within us and our very human love for one another are more than just that; they are a true resource the parish needs for its life and growth. It Starts with Us Basically, what we mean when we talk about evangelizing is a call to look around us, to develop a true awareness of what is happening among our fellow parishioners. We have to know about the poverty and the loneliness in specific circumstances. It just is not good enough to know there is a lonliness in the parish. Anytime you have a large group of people, of course there is a certain amount of loneliness. Our awareness has to go deeper than the general knowledge that some widows are lonely or some young people are alienated. We ought to know that Mary is alienated, that Peter is poor, that Frances is lonely. Then our next step is to make sure that loneliness, poverty or alienation is taken care of. There is no way we can do everything for everybody. But we can make sure that something is done for somebody. And that does not mean phoning the rectory and saying Hay, so-and-so needs food or This family is fighting with one another. Unfulfillment Cuts Both Ways Evangelization calls for us to be involved on all levels of our society. We have to have our eyes open so that we are not afflicted with tunnel vision. That means: we are not just trying to get people to come back and occupy empty spaces in the pews and drop their envelopes in the basket. We do want people to come home. But the reason has nothing to do with numbers. We want them to fill us up, to be a part of us because we truly are not the fullness of who we can be without them. We really need them in order to become Catholic ourselves to the highest possible degree. Lets look at the phenomenon of Christmas-and-Easter Catholics. We can look at all these people who crowd our churches on holidays as not going to be there the following Sunday. We can say, Whats the matter with them? Dont they realize what theyre missing? but actually, they are saying to us at least by their actions that they dont find anything when the do come. They have an impulse and an instinct of wanting to be part of this. But when they come, there is nothing there for them. So the churchgoing habits of Christmas-and-Easter Catholics are just as much a condemnation of us as of them because they do not find any warmth and personal relationship when they do come to us. Who are the Unchurched? We also have to be very, very concerned with the unchurched. First and foremost, recognize that each of us is unchurched to at least some degree. Pope Paul VI pointed out in his encyclical letter on evangelization that the first step in evangelizing is to be evangelized. We constantly have to b e evangelizing ourselves and one another. In a very real sense, none of us is fully Catholic. We have taken on Catholic duties, Catholic responsibilities, Catholic principles. But we have not taken on Catholics and made them an integral part of our lives. To the degree that we fail to do that, we ourselves are not churched. Being churched means belonging to one another, not just to go to a church building for a church event. The first step toward the unchurched is toward ourselves. We have to admit really and honestly that we are not fully churched. We have to realize very vividly that what makes us fully the church is our bonds with others who are the church. Numbers of people in our society have no contact with Church whatsoever. We really have to have great concern for these people for their sake, for our sake, and for Gods sake. We have to invite them to join our Church not necessarily in the sense that they came to the formal, structured Catholic Church, but that they be a part of our lives; that they be integrated into our love for another. Call to a Shared Apostolate In these twin booklets, Being the Body of Christ and Touching the Body of Christ, we have been talking about intimacy with our extended Catholic family. We have focused on growing with others in wisdom, age, and grace through prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments, and Catholic conscience. As soon as we really develop this sense of intimacy in our parish especially in little clusters of four or five families our possibilities for reaching our and serving others increase greatly. In the past most of us have restricted our apostolate to what we as an individual or as a couple can do for people. But as a result of this solo or duo approach, we have found that the problems as just too immense. There is no way that one person can even recognize all the problems. As for effectiveness, the results are confined to a few isolated instances. There has to be a better way and there is one. We have to adopt a communal apostolate. Untapped Richness There is a special charism to the prayer of a group over and above the grace of individual prayer. So too, there is a special charism to a communal apostolate. So we should approach our apostolate first of all as an individual family, and then secondly as a group of families. One result of working as a group is that it is much more effective the burden is not on one person. But there is a much deeper reason for communal apostolate. When we reach out as a group, people get more of a sense of Church. Again, it is like prayer. When we are praying together, there is more of a sense of Church. When we include other people in our love relationships with our friends and immediate family, they have much more of a sense of being touched by the Church the Body of Christ. If we are serving others individually, we are appreciated. But the appreciation goes to us as an individual rather than as the community of believers, the parish. We are called to be a community, and our whole life should be a communal like. It should not just be a private life with our community activities. One of the greatest riches we have is our family and our friendships. We must not hoard these riches to ourselves. If we do, we are just like a man who will be your friend, but will not introduce you to his wife and children. Actually, they are the best part of him. They are the greatest richness he has to share and yet he doesnt. That simply is not good enough. It is sad. But that, very often, is exactly the way we are. We act as private individuals. We do all sorts of good for others, but it is a purely private matter. The emphasis is on service and ministry, rather than on relationship. We need the support of belonging to those who love us. And we need the support of our commitment to love them in return. Once we have that kind of support system, we are much more capable of touching the lives of others more effectively and more meaningfully. True Corporate Involvement We have to look not only at our individual activities but at our corporate activities. For example: where are we as far as being part of the Catholic school if there is one in our parish? The question is not, Do we send our kids there? It is: Are we really part of the resources of that school? Are we really involved enough so that those who are part of the professional staff truly count on us? Is our heart really in that school? Do we look on it as our school, or as just a school we help support? Are we truly concerned about the well-being of everybody in that school principal, teachers, student body? Involving the Uninvolved We should not mother-hen other Catholics. Some of us simply do not believe that all the members of the parish are willing and capable of being members of the Body of Christ. We tend to think of them as people who need to be taken care of. This is a problem for some priests and sisters, but it is equally a problem for some who are the pillars of the Church. We have to recognize that everybody is called to the sacrament of Confirmation; we need to share with them that sense of mission. We really do not do people a favor by taking care of them. But we do share a priceless grace when we help them to see they can touch as well as be touched by the body of Christ; when we help them realize they have a tremendous contribution to make. The same is true of all the other activities in the parish. Are they occasions to love one another, merely duties we perform? Or do I believe I am not that kind of person so I simply will not get involved in anything? The whole point in being confirmed is to become involved in a personal communal way. Everybody is capable of love. Talents are not really the prime issue in the sacrament of Confirmation. The prime issue is the ability to love and to allow others into our lives. When we fail to focus on this reality, we end up leaving people out. This is especially true of young people, our own children included. We figure the time for them to get involved will be later on when they grow up. But later on is too late. By then they will have had no experience of real parish involvement, and wont have any apostolic leg muscles. We have to include them right from the very beginning. Give them an opportunity in accord with their inclinations and talents of whatever stripe, all the time. Call to Lead Our People We have to see ourselves as adult leaders in the Church, that our prime call as adult leaders is to develop other adult leaders. At best, most of us tend to see ourselves as workers and faithful members of the Church. We have to see we are as much leaders as the pastor, the school principal or the head of the parish council. We can provide a direction and a vision for the parish by the way we live our lives; by the way we appear to other people; by the way we call other people to contribute their own direction and vision to this parish. There is too much griping, too much sitting back passively waiting for somebody else to provide magic shortcuts to the parish responsibility and leadership for others. No one can live our Confirmation for us neither the priest, the sisters, nor the other official parish leaders. We must live it. The gifts of leadership the Spirit pours out of us are for the Body of Christ. To the extent we let our grace lie dormant, it is His Body, our people, who are less full. You Shall Be My Witness Without a sense of mission there simply cannot be a sense of Church. The reason Jesus established the Church in the first place was to give us a mission, the mission of proclaiming his death and Resurrection and His coming again. This is what we are all about at Church. The Church is not a safe harbor, not just a nice oasis where we get taken care of. The Church is ourselves proclaiming the Gospel message. We have been sent. Jesus basic word to us as Church was: You shall be my witness. If we don not make that mandate the basic pattern of our lives, we will look on Church as a series of duties which limit our freedom or as an occasion for spiritual self-development and personal perfection. The Church really is the community of believers who truly accept and live their relationship with one another proclaim the Lord Jesus first and foremost to one another, and then to the whole world. A questionnaire Here is a questionnaire that will help you to use what you see in this booklet as a mirror of your life. To get the most out of the questions offered, go back through the booklet and read the paragraphs that will help you to answer the particular question you are answering. Before you start, put yourself in the presence of our Father and let Him look you over. Be much more conscious of Him than yourself. Spend a little time on this. Relax and unwind to get away from any feeling of having to do this questionnaire. Just be conscious of Him. Let His love, rather than your activities be the dominant reality. Think of what you mean to Him. Think of the plans He has for you. Then bring Jesus into your consciousness. Let Jesus be very real to you and sense how He is sending His spirit. This is the age of the Spirit and we have to be open to Him. We have to let Him send us where He will. Basically you will be answering one simple question. There will be a series of questions, but the background to those questions is basically one simple question: How am I going to tough or be touched by the Body of Christ my fellow parishioners this week? Dont make any grandiose plans. Dont sell your house and move to Africa. Simply take the environment you are in and become a person of the Spirit, a person immersed in the people whom the Father has gathered in this age to Himself. When you finish this questionnaire, go over it with your family. Do your best to answer it right now, in the way you believe the Spirit is moving you. But leave some openings there so that your mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband or wife can influence you. Ask them things like: Is this the best way for me to answer this particular question? Then ask the rest of the family to take this questionnaire and fill it out for themselves. Even the youngest child who can read and print can do these questions. At the end of the week, go over the questionnaire again with the whole family. See how well you have done with your plans and what you still have to do. Dont let yourself off the hook because your week ran out of days and you did not do such-and-such. If there is something left undone from this present plan you are laying out for yourself, that will give you a start for the following week. 1.When was I confirmedWhat do I remember about my Confirmation?2.How often do I think about the fact that I am confirmed?What do I usually think about my Confirmation when it comes to mind?3.How does my realization of being confirmed affect my family?4.How does my realization of being confirmed affect my friends?5.How does my realization of being confirmed affect my parish?6.Dream of some ways you can touch and witness to the Body of Christ as one of our confirmed members.7.Dream of some ways you can be enriched in grace and touched by the Body of Christ.8.What will be one specific point of contact youll make with the Body of Christ this week? What are your hopes for this meeting?9.With whom do you personally need to reconcile?How specifically will you go about doing this?What inactive or fallen-away Catholics do you know? A Weekly Log The following is a weekly log a review of the questionnaire you filled out with a space to make plans for the following week. This is something to do together with your family and the people with whom you are gradually getting closer. Ask them to do the same. If this gets you uptight, or makes you feel obligated rather than free, then do not use it. For many of us it offers a good opportunity to check up on ourselves. So if it helps you, use it. If it doesnt help you, dont use it. Here is a rule of thumb; If Im doing something without particular help, then I do not need it But I am not doing anything really evangelizing, maybe I ought to use it even if I dont like it. Review of last week 1.Did you fulfill your plan for contact with the Body of Christ? Explain. 2What was the effect on you?What was the effect on the others?3.In what way could other Catholics have been an aid to you in your task this past week?4.What can be done this coming week to further and develop this contact you have already made? 5.How can you involve some of your Catholic friends with you? Plan for the Coming Week 1.What new contact with the Body of Christ will you seek to establish this week? 2.What are your hopes for this meeting?3.What Catholic friends will you invite to join you? Building Intimacy: An Examination of Conscience Here is an examination of conscience to help you build intimate relationships among your close friends. One of the constant complaints in our society is that we are so lonely and isolated. The answer to loneliness is relationship. We have to bring other families and individuals into such close ties with us that we are really interwoven and supportive of one another. The point of this examination of conscience is to get us to look at where we stand with our friends; to decide what we are going to do to make our relationships closer, more supportive and more caring. Our parish is never going to be fully meaningful and whole until we have a deeper level of human companionship. Jesus told us to love one another as He has loved us. This cannot be accomplished just by attending a common ritual. We have to be really linked with one another from day to day during the week. 1.Whom do we consider our closest Catholic friends? (Be sure to include blood family members and relatives.)2.Besides each of the persons named above, indicate the present degree of intimacy you have with them by an: I to indicate intimacy is increasing; M to indicate intimacy is maintaining itself or staying the same; D to indicate intimacy is decreasing. 3.Whom, if any, of the above have we invited to join us in our evangelizing tasks?4.Mention those whom you havent invited and the reason(s) that has kept you from doing so. 5.With those you have invited to join you, has the Catholic dimejsion of your relationship increased? Explain. 6. For each of your present Catholic friends, what plans can you make for the next four months to increase the intimacy and enjoyment of your friendships? 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