February 2022 Parish Vitality News

Bringing the Principle to Life: Eucharist

The Eucharist makes the Church. This simple statement is at the heart of what it means to be a member of the Catholic Church, the community of the baptized who gather each Sunday to do what Jesus commanded: Participate in His Sacrifice on the Cross, sharing a sacred meal – His body and blood – together in His memory. It’s no surprise, then, that Archbishop Schnurr established “Eucharist” as Beacons of Light’s first principle with these words:

Yet, we are experiencing a Eucharistic crisis. Consistent Mass participation is declining nationally, with a sharp drop in attendance locally for the past decade. We anticipate our churches continuing to fill as the pandemic wanes, but attendance to-date remains far below even two years ago. Perhaps it is partly because parish liturgical life isn’t what it should be. The U.S. Bishops teach: “Good celebrations foster and nourish faith. Poor celebrations may weaken and destroy it.” This includes diminishment of the Eucharist’s importance in our lives – some Catholics even lacking belief in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. When parishes shape their new Family and plan a vibrant future together, the Eucharist’s centrality must be upheld.

As we, together, plan our future in Families of Parishes, the primacy of the Eucharist comes to fruition through the prayer and hard work of both parish leaders and all the faithful. There may be difficult adjustments: changes to Mass schedules, new musical repertoires, new needs for liturgical ministers, and more. You can find guidance on how to manage these changes as part of the Pastoral Planning Pathway. Through all of these efforts, we are called to uphold the Eucharist as the heart and center of parish Family life.

We're making our way through Phase 0: Warmup, the time of preparation before our Families of Parishes are implemented. The Pathway Phase 0 site includes numerous resources to equip parish leaders to pray, learn, and prepare.

Parish Inventories, focused on the six Beacons of Light guiding principles, have been added to the Phase 0 site. We encourage pastors, staff, and parishioner leaders to complete the inventories in the time between now and July 1. Then, when your Family comes together, you will be prepared to share what is currently part of the life of your parish, and you may begin to discern the future of your family, building on all that is in place right now.

In Journeying Together, Fr. Fernandes draws on Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis in inviting us to understand Beacons of Light as a process of synodality, in which we listen to one another in order to strengthen our Families of Parishes as evangelizing communities.

Most of us have had the experience of being at a meeting or speaking with a friend and realizing that the people involved are not really listening to what is being said. Synodality involves truly listening, not only for what is being said on the surface of things, but what is being expressed from the heart. Such listening “involves listening not only to each other, but also to the Spirit to know what ‘He says to the churches.’ (AAS, 107) Listening affirms each person’s dignity and expresses respect for the voices, legitimate desires, problems and sufferings of the People of God.” (Journeying Together, p. 8)

How does such synodality work in the process of pastoral planning? In a comprehensive pastoral planning process, parish leaders listen to the people in their communities and discern their future together.

“‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch’ Simon replied, ‘Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’ And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear… they filled both boats to sinking point.” Luke 5:1-7

How many times have we tried and tried to the point of burnout or exhaustion just to come up empty-handed? We have to honestly ask ourselves, ‘was this my plan or His’?

Sometimes it seems we weren’t doing the right thing at all because we simply didn’t ask what His will was first. Sometimes we might be doing the right thing, but we’re trying to do it by our own power and grit – not with the guidance of His Spirit.

In my short experience of parish life, everything I’ve pushed to ‘just get it done’ without taking the time to ask the Lord if this is something that He wants, it’s failed miserably – albeit keeping me humble. BUT, on the contrary, when I take the time to ask the Lord ‘what and when’, He shows up every time... ‘Tearing my nets’ by running out of food when more people come than I had logistically planned for.

An example of this is the Breakfast Club we began in the St. Henry Cluster. Every week we meet with teens for Breakfast Club at 7am before school on Friday. Some weeks we have 30 kids, some we have 50... I'm consistently blown away by the weeks when it's made really clear to me what He wants to share at Breakfast Club. Everything just falls into place (but those weeks we almost always run out of food as He tears our nets). Ministry and parish life can become routine, and sometimes mundane. When we allow His Spirit to speak for us, He'll fill us back up with the excitement and amazement that got us here in the first place.

- Miranda Schweiterman,
Director of Youth Ministry
St. Henry Cluster, St. Henry

Miranda recently received the New Fire Award from the Center for the New Evangelization. Hear Miranda talk about her journey as a pastoral minister and youth ministry at St. Henry here.

Parish leaders – priests, deacons and staff – are encouraged to join together for a day of prayer and personal reflection around the coming changes in parish structures as part of the Beacons of Light pastoral process. We hope to create a space for hospitality, listening and encounter with the Holy Spirit.

The day’s theme is A God Who Hears His People featuring Josh Danis, national director for Alpha in a Catholic Context, and hosted by the Center for the New Evangelization in conjunction with the Office of Parish Vitality.