Mark your calendars for our parish wide social justice service project discernment zoom, Thursday, November 2nd at 6:30PM.

PARISH DISCERNMENT
Near the beginning of this calendar year, I invited a broadly representative number of parishioners to form an ad hoc working group. Why? It is essential for us as a community of disciples of Jesus that we be engaged in service of those in need. Now that the “Warming Center” of former days is no longer a direct ministry of our parish due to the tremendous growth of the Pope Francis Center, we must ask ourselves about our parish commitment to service. I asked the ad hoc working group to make a proposal before the end of his year for a service project that could become a collective ministry of our parish. All parishioners were invited to give their input, and the group researched many non-profits and churches in the city. Eventually they broke into three sub-committees, each pursuing a different area of service. Their three proposals are now ready.

On  Thursday evening, November 2, we’ll have a zoom meeting for everyone in the parish for a presentation of the three proposals. Then everyone at the meeting (or who watches the recording online) will have one week to complete an online survey that will allow you to express your opinion about the proposals. Subsequently another panel of representative parishioners will review the survey results – that is, all of your opinions – and make a final recommendation to me.

I want to emphasize two points about all this:

• PLEASE RESERVE THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 2 to participate in the parish-wide zoom. Just as Pope Francis has assembled the current Synod in Rome so that the universal Church can find its way forward through the gathering of people from all over the world, so too do we need ALL PARISHIONERS to be involved in order to make the best discernment of our future direction as a parish.
• I AM INVITING YOU INTO A PROCESS OF PRAYER AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. This is not something to be decided by majority vote nor by partisan debate. Rather we will be listening to one another, to all the voices in the parish, and thereby discovering how each one of us is moved, led, or drawn in prayer.  Only as we listen prayerfully to how the Holy Spirit is moving in our hearts will we find a sure path forward for our community.