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KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on this page Copyrighted 1980 by N. C. News Service)
characteristics in a study of more than 200
parishes throughout the United States.
The parishes that were studied were
recommended in large part by the
diocesan-appointed contact person working
with the Parish Project. The contact person
selected a parish to be studied, one judged
somehow effective at carrying out the
mission of Christ.
These parishes tended to foster people’s
participation and collaboration. Often they
had parish councils. The priests, sisters and
lay ministers on the parish staffs tended to
work closely together, having staff meetings
at least every two to three weeks in 80
percent of the cases.
If collaboration is present, so are means
of setting priorities and planning. About six
out of every 10 of these parishes have gone
through some kind of planning process and
four of every 10 have brought in an outside
consultant.
Characteristic of the parishes is the use of
many people in the work of the parish. On
the average, the parishes have two full-time
priests. But often they also have sisters, lay
people and either permanent deacons or
those interning in preparation for
priesthood. Each of these groups is
represented on staffs in half the parishes
studied.
The parishes carry out a number of
activities. Liturgy planning, adult religious
education, prayer groups, youth ministry
and ministry to the elderly are the most
prevalent of these parish activities. Liturgy
Almost half of these parishes have set out
through a. program of evangelization to bring
the Gospel to people not participating in the
church. Leadership training is also offered in
half the parishes.
Parish ministry is hard work. It takes
endless hours on the part of parishes and
their people, combining vision and care for
the individual, deep faith and careful
organization.
Qualities of faith are hard to measure. A
highly organized parish can still be hit with
great conflict, or it may be found lacking in
warmth and community.
Nothing can substitute for the evidence
of faith and love. Moreover, one person’s
dream may be another’s nightmare. What for
me may be an ideal, for you may be
maddening.
There are some features of parishes trying
to carry out Christ’s mission that may be
almost universal: attention to liturgy and
preaching, care for individuals, a sense of
community, support for family life and
guidance for youth. But even these features
may look different from one parish to
another.
The parishes we studied are involving
more people in the mission of the parish.
They are taking pains to work at setting
priorities and offering a variety of
opportunities for people.
Moreover, they are putting these kinds of
things in first place: liturgy, prayer, adult
development, youth and the elderly.
SOME FEATURES of a good parish are almost universal.
They probably would include good liturgy and preaching,
care for individuals in need, a sense of community, support
for family life and guidance for youth. But approaches to
these needs will vary widely from parish to parish. At St.
Anthony Parish in Pewaukee, Wis., second graders preparing
for their First Communion gather around the altar as Father
John Czyzynski explains the vestments and vessels. (NC
Photo by Anne Bingham)
Instruments Of God's Grace
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
How should members of a Christian
community regard their pastors, those
commissioned as official ministers of the
word? Inevitably this depends on the
parishioners’ views of ministry.
In First Corinthians chapter 3, St. Paul
Basic Ingredients Of Decision-Making
BY DAVID GIBSON
1. When a parish and its people come
together for the Eucharist on Sunday, God
takes action among his people. It is the heart
of a person, the spirit of a community that
are addressed.
2. Decisions! Decisions! Decisions! You
can’t get away from them. They’re part of
the stuff of life.
Some people make decisions quickly.
Others ponder long and hard the decisions
they face.
There are people who agonize over each
decision. Perhaps they wonder why others
don’t do the same.
Some people savor their decisions.
Perhaps they wonder why others think
decisions are problems.
The need to make a decision often
appears in the form of a question.
“Should I buy the $150 sport jacket?”
Th ree Refl ections
“How can I rearrange my schedule and gain
more time to spend with my family?”
“Should I seek help to improve my
relationship with my teen-age children?”
“Where should I go on my vacation?”
In cases like these, a decision serves as the
answer to a question. Once a decision is
PERSONAL DECISION-MAKING
can be tough. It can be the source of
agony or of happiness. (NC Photo by
Mimi Forsyth)
made, a direction is chosen. Maybe a person
chooses to get help with a family
relationship. Again, a person chooses to drop
one activity that has been found tedious
(sometimes even one that has been found
enjoyable), in order to spend more time at
home with the family.
So a decision is a choice - it shapes the
course of one’s life a bit: it can affect one’s
future. Decision making is a process through
which a new direction in life is chosen.
Then again, decisions serve as a means of
solving problems. Everyone has problems:
how to manage the family income; how to
assure a good religious education for one’s
children; how to help care for elderly
relatives; whether to join with others in
time-consuming work that will promote
justice in a local community.
The decisions one makes can affect other
people. That fact cannot be avoided; it
makes decisions more difficult.
Because decisions affect others, some
people decide not to make their decisions in
private. They work together to solve a
mutual problem: families sit down together
to decide on reasonable household schedules
that work well; parents and teachers work
together for the benefit of the children in
whom they have a mutual interest;
co-workers try to find ways to use the best
talents of each person in an office.
It seems that decisions are tremendously
important, albeit just the stuff of everyday
life. A decision is an effort to get inside
one’s own life and to push at it a bit -- to
move life in one direction or another, to act
in a constructive way on behalf of one’s own
life and on behalf of others.
Decisions, then, are not on the periphery
of life. They are central. They reflect the
spirit of people, the hopes of a group.
3. God, it is said, offers assistance to
people.
But perhaps God does even more. It
seems he gets inside life, changes it.
In the context of the parish celebration
of Mass, one’s attitudes toward the world,
other people, oneself or one’s future are
called into question, restored and recreated.
These attitudes are among the basic
ingredients of decision making. Decisions are
shaped by one’s attitudes.
God relates in a personal way to people -
to the questions they have, the problems
they must solve, the needs that challenge
(and worry) them, the choices that have to
be made -- the decision making that can give
life new shape, new meaning.
God doesn’t make decisions for people.
But he acts decisively with and for people
who must make decisions everyday.
explained his understanding of those in the
apostolate who, he describes as co-workers
with God, instruments of God’s grace,
sowers and tenders of the seed. Chapter 4 of
this epistle, then, is the logical sequel to
chapter 3.
Therefore, the Corinthian people should
regard Paul and Apollos and all the rest “as
servants of Christ and administrators of the
mysteries of God.” (1 Cor. 4:1)
Paul’s choice of words here is very clever.
They express both his subordinate position
and at the same time his responsible
authority. The word “servants” was used to
describe the rowers on the lowest bank of
oars in the old galley ships - about as
subordinate as one could get.
At the same time, this word had acquired
another meaning in the political area:
official witness. Paul thus communicates two
important ideas with this one word. He is
not “his own man,” acting and preaching on
his own initiative and authority; he is utterly
dependent on Christ and his Father.
On the other hand, Paul is not a doormat.
Because of his dependence he enjoys a
special relationship with Jesus and his Father
-- that of an officially commissioned witness,
invested with authority far surpassing any he
could claim for himself.
As an administrator for God, Paul is,
more specifically, a “steward,” who holds a
position of high honor and responsibility in
the society of the day.
Royal stewards were second only to the
king himself. Ordinarily the steward of an
estate ran all of its affairs, with full
authority and corresponding responsibility.
That is why “the first requirement of an
administrator is that he prove trustworthy.”
(1 Cor. 4:2) He must be faithful to his
charge and is directly answerable to the lord
of the estate - and to him alone.
This leads Paul to his immediate point. It
makes little difference to him what
judgment any merely human agency may
pass on him. Nor does he pass judgment on
himself, one way or the other.
Paul says he has no pangs of conscience as
a result of his conduct of affairs but, quite
consistently, he does not accept that as a
guarantee that he is without fault. In the
final analysis, there is only one competent
too judge him - the Lord himself.
Therefore, the Corinthians are clearly in
the wrong, almost arrogant really, in setting
themselves up as judges of the respective
merits of their ministers. They are wrong in
splintering the parish community on the
basis of their personal evaluations.
The day appointed for judgment is the
day of the Lord’s return, which Paul and his
contemporaries looked for in the not too
distant future. Any judgment anticipating
that definitive one is, by its very nature,
bound to be premature, immature, quite
literally prejudicial.
So, Paul says, “Stop passing judgment
before the time of his return. He will bring
to light what is hidden in darkness and
manifest the intentions of hearts. (1 Cor.
4:5).
Paul wants it clearly understood that this
is to be a general norm for Christian
behavior. The world may operate according
to different standards, but their vocation is
not to mimic the world but to transform it.
Christians are to live by higher standards and
a radically different value system.
For Paul, the Corinthians’ attitudes to
him and Apollos illustrates in an alarming
way what the application of unchristian
standards can do to a Christian community.
The Corinthians must learn from this
experience. And act accordingly.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. The parishes he studied share certain characteristics, says Father
Philip Murnion. List and discuss two of the common characteristics he
mentions.
2. Is the size of a parish crucial to its ability to serve?
3. What does David Gibson say are some reasons for making
decisions?
4. What goes in to making a decision? Why does Gibson insist that
decisions affect not only the person but also those around him or her?
5. Decision making is a vital part of everyday life. Do parishes and
their people really have anything to offer to this part of everyday life?
6. According to Father John Castelot, what is significant about St.
Paul describing himself, Apollos and others like them as both servants
and administrators?
7. Why does Paul criticize the Corinthians forjudging those like Paul
and Apollos?
November 20,1980
PAGE 5
Working Together On Christ’s Mission
BY FATHER PHILIP MURNION
In my work with the U.S. bishops’ Parish
Project, I have the opportunity to see many
ways parishes try to make certain that
Christ’s mission is carried out.
Again and again I see how parishes try to
respond to the actual needs of the people of
their own area. It seems particularly
interesting that no two parishes seem to
serve people in exactly the same way.
There are parishes which seem to stress
hospitality, others that are highly organized
and have many activities, still others that are
exceptionally skilled at reaching beyond
their own borders into their neighborhoods
and towns.
What appears to be true, however, is that
in their efforts to genuinely respond to
needs that are present, parishes share certain
characteristics. The Parish Project had an
opportunity to look at some of these
planning, for example, takes place in 93
percent of the parishes.
The parishes have an average of 9-10
organized activities in addition to the
parochial schools found in slightly more
than half the cases. The staffs of the parishes
tended to value highly the variety of
activities offered by the parishes.
Decline in Mass attendance is occuring
throughout the country, yet most of these
parishes report very little drop in Mass
attendance. What’s more, only 6 percent of
the parishes receive any subsidy. We have
found that, while this is not always possible,
parishes, even in poor areas, often become
self-supporting as they become more vital
communities for all the people.
The size of the parish does not appear to
be decisive in its ability to serve people.
Only half the parishes we studied had more
than 3,000 Catholics. We studied parishes
with as few as 500 Catholics.
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on this page Copyrighted 1980 by N. C. News Service)