Stand on the platform of an incoming subway train and you can feel the train get closer. Stop alongside a car with a blaring stereo and your car shakes with the sound. Listen to the summer cicada; the air pulsates with their deafening noise. Feel the pulsing of a roller coaster under your feet as it whips around the track. Vibrations indicate movement. Vibrations that beat and pulsate imply a pulse, and a pulse means life.
What makes a vibrant parish, one with vitality and a healthy life people recognize? A vibrant parish is alive with a pulse that is felt and seen from within by its members and externally by those who know it by its works, ministries and reputation.
Liturgy inspires active participation and offers an experience of God. Many components create good liturgy and almost everyone has an opinion on them. But some values help all liturgies. Liturgical ministers who are well formed in their roles invite all community members to celebrate together. Music responsive to the liturgical seasons as well as the cultures and languages that make up different assemblies moves the hearts and spirits of those who play, listen and sing. Relevant preaching connected to the lives of the community touches hearts and sends all forth nourished and challenged. Vibrant parishes offer liturgies that invite people to linger with God yet propel them into the world and the needs found there. People come to be nourished and then sent forth to act.
The Bishop has asked each Parish to examine the Mass Schedule to best serve the entire community. With this in mind the Liturgy Committee of the Parish Council is conducting a Survey. The goal of the survey is to assist with our parish’s liturgical celebrations and planning for the year ahead with the ultimate goal of a liturgy that inspires active participation and offers an experience of God. You are being asked to evaluate the Ushers, Music, Preaching/Homily, Lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Altar Servers, Cleanliness, Décor and Mass Schedule. We look forward to creating liturgies that invite people to linger with God yet propel them into the world and the needs found there. In the coming months the Liturgy Committee will be examining the needs of the parish and will offer recommendations to the Parish Council.
We ask you to prayerfully consider how you would “rate” each aspect of our weekly Mass celebrations, complete the survey and return it by January 28. We thank you and ask for your prayers.