The Christmas and New Year’s celebrations are now just a memory.

The focus now has to be on the implementation work that lies ahead for all parishes in the Archdiocese.

Although not directly connected with the implementation process Catholic men are being encouraged by the New Evangelisation Department (NED) to participate in the three-day seminar “In Praise of Man: Jesus! Man of Power and God of Love” next weekend at the Emmaus Centre in Arima.

The programme, being jointly run by the NED and the Companions for the Transfigured Christ (CTC), is viewed as part of the thrust of the 2010 theme which focuses on the family.

On the other side of the implementation coin, the Archdiocese’s smallest parish – St John the Baptist, St John Village, St Augustine, led by Fr Hugh Joyeau, convened a special meeting last week to review its Pastoral Plan and prioritise its projects and/or programmes marked for implementation during the year.

Coming out of that meeting PIT (Parish Implementation Team) coordinator Kerina Khelawan said the first order of business was the revival of the parish’s pastoral council, from which it is expected that a more aggressive effort will be made to complete some, if not all of the projects planned for the year.

Second priority will be an all out recruitment drive to attract parishioners to the various ministries active in the Church, from lay ministers to the youth. Khelawan said it was the consensus of the meeting that for full implementation to be achieved there had to be a concerted, all-inclusive effort for greater involvement by all.

Other areas marked for special consideration in St John’s are the resuscitation of a vibrant prayer group, allocation of weekend masses to some of the ministries and greater involvement of the youth.

In the neighbouring Curepe, Fatima parish the PIT will convene its first meeting for the year later this week, but in the meantime, according to Celia Regis of the PIT, the priests are being asked to build their homilies around the family, using the readings of the day.