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M6e IT- The Georgia Btriletih, August %■ W$t) Fairburn LaSalette Parish 'Bursting At The Seams' FULL HOUSE - The remodeled funeral home serves as sanctuary, rectory, office building and educational facility for the parish. BY PAULA DAY St. Matthew’s parish in Fairburn is one of the seven LaSalette parishes in the archdiocese undergoing an evaluation this summer. Father James Caffery, MS, is pastor of the South Fulton County parish and during his two years as pastor the parish has grown from 260 to 345 households. Recently when he asked parishioners to evaluate their parish, he told them, “You will honor me most by being truthful.” The priest noted that if a parish is a healthy parish, it is because the parishioners dso work to make it so. “We must be a welcoming, inviting community as individuals.” he said. Through its Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIC) process the parish received 14 into full commun ion with the Church this past Easter. Seven are now participating in the pre-catechumenate and nine have indicated interest in the sessions to begin in the fall. “The spirit of this parish community is shown in its liturgies,” Father Caffery explained. “They are uplifting, welcoming, joyful. The people are extending themselves, not allowing themselves to be strangers.” St. Matthew’s has many young families the priest pointed out. The number of children in the parish religious education program has increased from 55 to 160 since he became pastor. They are involved in the weekend liturgies, singing songs, offering prayers of the faithful, at times performing appropriate skits. Recently a parishioner approached Father Caffery asking to initiate a senior citizens group. According to Rose Noehl, the group has grown from 12 to 16 to 21. They have attended a local theater production and have plans to go to a Braves game. “If you take care of the young and take care of the old,” Father Caffery said, “then you get those in between. If you care for those they love, then they’ll be interested in the Church.” Father Caffery points with pride to the parish outreach to the community at large through its S.M.A.R.T. Team. The St. Matthew’s Addiction Re ferral Team meets twice a month and offers educa tional and supportive assis tance to those affected by alcohol and drug abuse in the area. St. Matthew’s parishio ners extend their welcom ing and joyful spirit to the sick and shut-in, making regular visits to Christian City. The extensive complex in South Fulton County includes a convalescent center, retirement home for die elderly and home for children. St. Matthew parishioners recendy trained to assist with the obtaining of annulments at a workshop conducted by the archdiocese’s Tribunal. Two plan to attend an August training session for parish AIDS ministry coordinators offered by the Archdiocesan AIDS Task Force. “The parish sends people to these (events) so that when hurting people come to me, I can send them to those who have been trained. The parish helps finance their involve ment. No matter what the future, they’ll be of service to the Church,” Father Caffery said. The “little church that could” is bursting at its seams. A converted funeral home, the structure houses the priest’s living quarters, offices, meeting rooms, classrooms and a tiny sanctuary, once the funeral home chapel. To accom modate overflow at weekend Masses, one room is convert ed into a closed circuit television room. Another, at a right angle to the sanctuary, opens directly onto the altar area. Groundbreaking for a new all-purpose structure with 4,000 square feet of socializing space is planned for the fall. In addition to this gathering area, it will be used for the more heavily attended weekend Masses, seating 450. It will add needed classroom space and the plans allow for the parish’s projected growth. The parish has $100,000 of the needed $300,000 for construction. The hoped-for completion, “at least by spring,” cannot come soon enough for Father Caffery who is a* “man without a room” from eight to 11 on Sundays. Even the rectory living room is expropriated; RCIA sessions are held there. Because of the concentration of so many on Sunday mornings in such a small area, the pastor says he “does more work on Sunday and then uses Monday to figure out what I promised people” the day before. “We’re working in a hurting situation, but there’s tremendous good spirit,” the priest says. “We’ll look back and say ‘those were the days.’” The LaSalette priest came from a Cajun parish in Louisiana of 1,500 families and church that could seat 800-900 people. He finds that the intimacy of St. Matthew’s small sanctuary with “no big pulpit to hide behind” creates a far less formal atmosphere and in his homilies he shares himself, talking “as if with family members.” St. Matthew’s will have its on-site evaluation in mid- September. Father Caffery will be the LaSalette member on an evaluation team visiting Good Shepherd parish in Orlando, Fla., in October. Parish Evaluations YOUTHFUL PARISHIONERS - Laura Warhola and seven first grade students in her religious education class are part of the fast grow ing and youthful parish population. PROUD PASTOR - Father James Caffery, MS, credits St. Matthew’s parishioners for helping to make the parish a welcoming community. (Continued from page 1) the province serve in 21 parishes from Massachusetts to Florida. The Second Vatican Council directed Religious orders and congregations in the Church to pinpoint their original purpose, their guiding spirit, by going back to their “roots.” They were then to rewrite their rule of life in the light of that founding spirit. The revised rule of the Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette received papal approval in 1985. The special spirit or “charism” of the LaSalette congregation, refocused by this examination of its begin nings, is one of reconciliation with God and one another, explained Father James Caffery, MS, pastor of St. Matthew’s parish in Fairburn. The parish evaluations seek to discover if the needs of the people are being met and if this spirit of reconciliation imbues parish life, the priest said. Begun in late spring, the evaluations are scheduled for completion in November. A final, written report, culled from preliminary reports from the evaluating teams and a province commission, will go to the provincial superior, Father Thomas Reilly. The evaluation process has three main phases. Basic information about the parish is gathered first. This in cludes a history of LaSalette involvement in the parish, its demographics, its financial status. More intensely, the survey investigates the presence of social and moral problem areas such as drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, abortion and AIDS. It asks about efforts to reach out to the needy and about ecumenical involvement. In a second phase, the pastor and parochial vicars are interviewed. Their efforts to continue their own education, their involvement with other community members in the area, and their ways of relaxing are discussed. A team will make an on-site weekend visitation to the parish in the final evaluation phase. A LaSalette priest, a professional person from the archdiocese and a lay person from outside the parish will make up the team. It will examine the parish plant, its condition and equipment. The LaSalette on the team will interview the pastor. In a working session with the parish council, council members will be asked to evaluate such areas as the parish liturgies, sacramental experiences, participation of parish ioners in parish life, their financial support, attendance at Mass, prayer life, outreach to the poor, as well as the quality of service given by the pastor and staff. The council members will be asked to list what they consider the parish’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition to the three evaluative phases, surveys are conducted among the parishioners, in the neighborhood or town, in neighboring parishes and among LaSalette priests in the province to discover what the parish image is with these groups. The pastoral planning evaluation by the LaS alettes of Our Lady of Seven Dolors province began in 1985 under the direction of the province’s five-member pastoral Planning Commission with Father Cassian Yuhaus, CP, as consultant. The province has 109 priests and brothers assigned to ministry in the United States and 24 men from the province work, in Argentina, S.A. The Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette have four provinces in this country.