Thank you for helping out with the data collection reporting that started last week at the English Masses at SLdM; we’ve had 1000 responses so far! This weekend I will do the exercise at the Los Alamos and Sisquoc English Masses. Fr John will organize with the Consejo the best way to do this exercise at the Spanish Speaking Masses. If you didn’t manage to fill a card in, please do so. You will find the Data Information Cards in the vestibule at the back of SLDM and in the side door racks. Please fill it in as fully as possible and hand it into the rectory or the sacristy at the end of Mass. The cards will also be available at the back of St Anthony’s and San Ramon. Again, let me assure you that this information is protected and secure. We have strong firewall protection. We do not give any of the information out to third parties and only the members of the pastoral team are allowed access to the information you have given us. This all will help us serve you better in the months and years ahead to further God’s Kingdom here on earth.
Our year focusing on stewardship depends upon us having the best ways of communicating with each other so that all the opportunities to grow as a parish and further the Kingdom of God in our little patch of it are given the fullest realization. The primary aim therefore of this year is twofold; to grow by reaching out beyond the walls of the church and the car park to the lost and the searching, and also to delve within ourselves, growing stronger about how we are living out our Catholic faith .
There are also some practical stages to this process. We need to analyze where we are (a project by the Pastoral Council is underway); then to work out where we want to go with the life of the parish; find the talents and commit the time to it and then to think about how we can, in practical and financial terms, put our vision into effect. This is a bold project and one that demands of us bold thinking and for all of us to grasp hold of and commit to it. A parish that stays still, treading water facing up current is actually going backwards. We must swim against the secularist tide all around us by putting into practice every means to bring God’s love and mercy to bear on our society though our dynamic witness to it.
May God bless you, your families, and the week ahead,
Fr Aidan Peter