MESSAGE ON THE 18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YR C)
Friday 29th July 2022.
My dear people,
How wonderful it is to be back home after a most fruitful time in the US. Our time in Indiana provided us with a great opportunity to witness the principles of Divine Renovation at work. Members of the parish of St John attended the Divine Renovation Conference in 2016 held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Since returning to St John’s, they have put what they learnt into practice and are now soaring in terms of missionary renewal. They are also being coached by Ron Huntley.
Llewy, Ann and I were blessed to spend much time with members of the staff of St John. The parish employs 22 staff, some full time and some part time. Each of the staff is responsible for running one aspect of the parish, which frees Fr Sammie Maletta, the Parish Priest, and enables him to concentrate on duties which are more pastoral in nature. In addition, this accomplishes the great task of empowering lay people to take an active role in the running of the parish.
I will not go through a list of names with you but simply mention the roles which the people whom we met perform in St John’s. Many of these staff members are part of the Leadership Team and each of them look after a particular aspect of the parish. Their roles include Pastoral Associate (PA) for Administration, Relational Ministry, Human Resources, Music, Service and Youth, and Catechesis. They also have staff who look after Accounting, Religious Education, Marriage Preparation and Media to name but a few. You are welcome to have a look at their website at https://www.stjohnparish.org. Our meetings with the different members of staff helped us understand what underpins their zeal for renewal and their success at doing it. We were able to attend one of their leadership meetings to compare the running of the meeting and learn from them.
Our time at St John’s was also blessed by attending their Sunday Mass. They are slowly building back up to the number of people attending Mass before COVID. They are presently at 80% capacity of pre-COVID numbers which were around 3,000 people. Their Vigil is at 5pm and their Masses on Sunday are at 8am and 10am.
The church has a seating capacity of 1200. I will organise for photos and short movie clips of our time in the US to be put on our website soon.
I do not want to sound like a broken record but I must reiterate that the time in the US, both at the conference and at St John’s, has renewed my zeal and passion for the spread of the Gospel in our parish. I pray that Jesus will keep that flame alive in my heart so that I can be better at bringing God to you and you to God.
This weekend, like last weekend, we will celebrate the First Holy Communion of our younger parishioners from Christ the Priest. Let us pray for these younger parishioners of ours, that they will understand the most precious gift that they are receiving, Jesus’ gift of himself to them.
From Sunday afternoon, I will be on annual leave and will be absent from the parish until the weekend of 28th August. This year, I will go to Mauritius where I will celebrate the wedding of one of my cousins. As usual, I will not leave you orphans but in the very capable hands of Fr Joel. I ask you to keep me in your prayers, that I will be refreshed when I come back for there is a lot of work to do to build the Kingdom of God here in our parish.
We continue turning to our patron saint, and we ask for her intercession.
St Catherine of Siena, Pray for us.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Fr Richard Rosse PP