Revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity – Jun 12

Appreciating the mission – May 29
December 18, 2014
A new way of being Church – Jul 10
December 18, 2014

Revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity – Jun 12


Revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity – Jun 12 PDF Print E-mail

new logoFrom the Synod Implementation Team

The second Pastoral Priority – Catholic Culture and Identity: My Church, My parish, My family began June 1, 2011. As the light shifts to this Priority we continue our reflection on family as a model for our Church and our parish. Ours is a special type of family, joined not by blood relations but by Baptismal water.

This initiation brings us together to be family with each other. It also makes us to be God’s family; we are Jesus’ sisters and brothers (Heb 2:11). Because of this identity that we have as God’s family, we have the responsibility or vocation to development of all people and the commitment to the transformation of the world.

As we move to this second Priority of SYNOD 2009, we are invited to reflect on Catholic Culture and Identity. This is a very big and important topic. We will approach it in four different ways:

1) Each parish is invited to prayerfully reflect on the seven Resolutions for Catholic Culture and Identity. Through this reflection and the conversation that follows from it, we ask that each parish select any two Resolutions and Resolution #4 to work with until December 2012. Using the template that we will provide, the parishes write a Pastoral Plan by July 31, 2011, for implementing the three selected Resolutions. We believe that Resolution #4 is central to the revitalisation of our Catholic Culture and Identity; that is why we are asking everyone to make it part of the Plan.

2) Each parish and community is invited to facilitate a conversation on the key elements of the faith of people over 65, those between 46 – 64, those between 31 – 46 and those under 30. This may be facilitated by first holding the conversation by age group separately and then an intergenerational conversation. We will offer some lead questions to assist this process. We would like your report on this by August 2, 2011. After we get this report we will prepare a survey for Catholics who no longer come to Mass. This will help us to understand what they expect of our Catholic family, and if they have gone elsewhere, why.

3) Each parish and community is expected to use this period to deepen the theology of stewardship amongst its members (with special emphasis on time and talent). This is central to our Pastoral Priority of Revitalizing Catholic Culture and Identity.

4) The Archdiocese will bring together a team to reflect on Catholic Culture and Identity in Trinidad and Tobago today. This team will pull together working papers and host a symposium in September 2011. The purpose of the symposium will be to begin an exploration of the theme. It will involve the whole People of God. After the symposium all parishes and communities will be invited to begin a conversation on Catholic Culture and Identity. The results of this conversation and the ongoing work of the team will be brought together for a second symposium to close the Pastoral Priority.

It is our hope that by approaching this new Priority in very practical ways at the level of parish and community and also exploring the theoretical issues of Catholic Culture and Identity, we will journey together to reflect upon and live more deeply as a Church and parish family. Our hope is that at the end of the period there may emerge two or three habits that we all will embrace to root our Culture and Identity in practices that will shape us into the family of God.

As we work together to revitalise Catholic Culture and Identity, let us make Paul’s prayer our own:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Last Updated on Friday, 17 June 2011 08:30