The parish council is a group of people, chosen from various families,
who come together with a Christian vision of a community of which we call
ecclesial parish. The administration of the parish is based on effectiveness,
efficiency and relevancy of the parish priest and his collaborators, working
together, functioning well and with high sense of life quality assessments. The
bishop is the main pastor and administrator of economic resources of the
diocese.
They are elected members baptized and fully immersed within the
community who have rights and obligations above all to live an authentic
Christian life as a witness to the entire personal experience and maturity. The
preoccupation should be to activate the role of parish council and to function
as an ecclesial unit for the help of evangelization. They don’t assume posts,
they assume a service that is specific for a Christian community, they have to collaborate with the
parish priest, not to form small groups pro or against the parish priests but a
family around the table of the lord. The main task is towards helping the
priests in different parishes of the diocese to be holy, faithful and true
instruments and temples of the Holy Spirit.
Above all the parish council ought to be a family of good listeners and
interpreters of the needs of the Christians in a given parish set up. They are
united, peaceful at heart and life, integrated, forgiving, bare suffering
together as a council with their priest and the community, hearing the message
of God with the capacity to converge, meet, in oneness, reflecting about the
youths, old, young, solitude and charitable.
The parish council ought to talk among themselves first to forge a unity
and in a relation that is solid before they talk in public. Whoever who talks
in public on behalf of the other members doesn’t speak on his on his or her behalf
but on behalf of the parish council with the sense of collegiality. There
should be a clear channel of communication between the parish priest, the
parish council and the Christian parish community.
The parish council has to work efficiently, effectively and should be
relevant to the signs of the time, as indicated in Gaudium et Spes #4
4. To
carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the
signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus,
in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial
questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about
the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and
understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often-dramatic
characteristics. Some of the main features of the modern world can be sketched
as follows.Today,
the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Profound and rapid
changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world. Triggered by the
intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon
his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner
of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence, we can
already speak of a true cultural and social transformation, one which has
repercussions on man's religious life as well.As
happens in any crisis of growth, this transformation has brought serious
difficulties in its wake. Thus, while man extends his power in every direction,
he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own welfare. Striving to
probe more profoundly into the deeper recesses of his own mind, he frequently
appears more unsure of himself. Gradually and more precisely he lays bare the
laws of society, only to be paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to
give it.Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of
wealth, resources and economic power, and yet a huge proportion of the worlds
citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty, while countless numbers
suffer from total illiteracy. Never before has man had so keen an understanding
of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery
make their appearance. Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness
of its unity and of how one man depends on another in needful solidarity, it is
most grievously torn into opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political,
social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and
with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes. True,
there is a growing exchange of ideas, but the very words by which key concepts
are expressed take on quite different meanings in diverse ideological systems.
Finally, man painstakingly searches for a better world, without a corresponding
spiritual advancement. Influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of
our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and
adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted between
hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about the present
course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness. This same course of
events leads men to look for answers; indeed, it forces them to do so.
The priests
working in the parish ought to be sustained well, that is the work of the
economic committee of the parish in coordination with the bishop’s office of
economic and welfare Sacco. The priests should be unhooked from the extra
ordinary activities that have nothing to do with priesthood but prayer,
sacraments and formation.
Every Mass
celebrated a percentage should be given to the priest and the remaining percentage
goes to the parish. The parish economist has to be very good at the care of
parish resources. There is no need to use lightings for 5 people as if there
are 30 persons living in the parish, cutting down on electricity bills. The
work of the priest is no to ask for money on Sunday, that is up to the work of
the parish council.
The priest has to make sure that he preoccupies
himself with spiritual matters, formation of the parish communities, unity of
the parish communities, sacraments and personal formation. Once a priest start
running around with things that don’t pertain to his ministry as a priest, it causes
pain and scandal to the Christian community.
The question for
each member of the parish council should be…For me who teaches me? How do I
come to self-knowledge of what I am doing? What does the Christian community
need from my services? How is my personal Christian growth and development in
human, spiritual, apostolate formation, why am I in this service? Why do I open
my mouth and what do I say once I open it? Is it a word that purifies, edifies,
unifies? does it console? is it a corporal word? The pastoral council members
have to get in touch with the gospel, it is not an attention of pride, but to
form oneself to be a good Christian. As a pastoral council member, you can’t do
your own thing, but a permanent Christian formation.
The way we
celebrate Mass should be the same way the community needs to be united. A
community of charity, prayer and making a parish a community of prayer, a
school of prayer, not a supermarket of managers out for profit and shoddy
dealings.
As a priest, your advice, revoke, discipline but as a father corrects
his son on the right truck. Being a parish council member is not to be proud,
or privileged place but a service, not a boss of the parish priest, that each
parish council has to be know from the time go.
Its all about ingredients
of life, experience, a permanent place for evangelization, continuity, unity or
else each one goes his way, and causing disorder in the community. In the first
place we are friends of Jesus, who converge in prayer and formation. This unity
is seen in the eucharist and prayer. The identity of the church is seen in the
way we walk together, in the spirit of truth.
The community is
formed in the mentality the members treat each other, the parish priest and collaborate
with the ordinary. The parish council
have always to construct the model of the parish. You just can’t create a
scandal in the way you treat each other. Its never a problem of conflict in a
given parish but the indifference in the way Christians live.
The families have
to be included in the running of the parish, we can’t be members who are closed in to ourselves in our mentality and thoughts, but open minded to the signs of the
times and proper system thinking. We have to disturb our consciences in the way we challenge ourselves to live as unified community that is geared towards
building Christ’s Church.
The unity of the parish is in groups formed in the parish communities, but the
experience of each family and members united by the message of the Gospel of Christ. In the church, we don't make a community of political party but a family of God.
We hope in the lord in the way we touch people’s hearts. If we dare to walk, then we have to walk together, forging the way forward. How do we bring the christian message to the christians in the modern man. It's not about God's word that is not powerful but the method we use may be wrong.
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