Parish Missions - Oblate Style

We are Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a religious Order of men within the Catholic Church with many Oblate Associates all over the world....(More)

 


What is an Oblate Parish Mission

Dynamics of a Mission

Glossary of Oblate Parish Mission Terms

The Purpose of an Oblate Parish Mission

The Mission’s Three Phases

The Spirituality of the Mission

 

 

 

 

WHAT IS AN OBLATE PARISH MISSION ?

  •    A time of grace and blessing
  •    God visiting his children
  •    Jesus bringing the Good News of salvation, forgiveness and healing
  •    the Holy Spirit building bridges among us
  •    A journey, not a destination
  •    A beginning - the start of something new
  •    Active versus passive
  •    A commitment to a process that unfolds beautifully
  •    The parish experiencing the blessings of a new evangelization and renewal

 

In today's world, the Good News of our salvation and the very basis of Christian morality and life are frequently lost in the hectic and demanding pace of modern living - or they get drowned out by high-decibel consumer-driven messages propagating false values. So, many people take their faith for granted without any real commitment, while others continue to call themselves Catholic though they stopped participating in the life of the Church years ago. And yet, there is a hunger for something more, for something deeper - an often unidentified longing for closeness and for interpersonal communion and support that the community provides.

At the same time, however, we are increasingly into the era of the mega-parish or the grouping of parishes with the subsequent loss of community identity. While necessary in the present situation, such mega parishes run the risk of becoming impersonal sacrament dispensaries for the masses, thus prejudicing the very sense of community for which people search.

The Parish Mission Empowers Baptized Catholics to Proclaim the Good News in very Concrete Ways - Missionary Ways .  It happens when active members of the parish community take up the challenge to reach out in love and openness to their Catholic brothers and sisters, both active and inactive. Working within the parish, with the pastor, the parish staff and pastoral council, the mission becomes a catalyst, setting in motion miracles of grace and compassion, binding the community together as a holy and apostolic people in faith, hope and love. It becomes a time for the Christian community to profess its unity more deeply through celebrations of its renewed faith. It is a time for parishioners to dream together about what the People of God can become - to discover with God's help, its future.

The Oblate Mission Team does not simply come into a parish to "preach" a mission for several days then leave. An Oblate Parish Mission is a four-year commitment between the team, the pastor, his staff, the pastoral council, and the members of the parish. It is ongoing.

 

 

 

 

An Oblate Parish Mission... A New Experience

Most active Catholics are familiar with the term “parish mission”.  For several years now most parishes have held one or more parish missions every year.  Generally in such missions, a speaker takes a specific theme, and over a period of three or four nights he presents various aspects of the theme.  People are invited to come to listen and learn.  Refreshments sometimes follow the talks, thus providing people with opportunity to visit with one another.  These parish missions are intended to bring people together – to give people “a lift” and to inspire them to see things differently or to make a change in their lives.  However such parish missions are in a sense passive in that people come to listen and learn but beyond attending, they do not actively participate in the mission.
An Oblate Parish Mission on the other hand is active in that it requires the participation of as many of the parishioners as possible.  An Oblate Parish Mission is an experience of the parish Church going to the people; to their homes – reaching out in love and charity to their Catholic brothers and sisters.To get this kind of parish mission off the ground takes lots of planning, preparation and organization by lots of people.In other words, people have to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to make it happen.  It is a time of forming or strengthening community as we work together.  It is an opportunity to build a framework for ongoing outreach and evangelization after the mission has ended.  It is living our call as baptized Christians to participate in building the Kingdom of God.

Dynamics of the Mission

1.  Home Visits – carried out, first, by parishioners, then by the extended Oblate team – are at the heart of the Oblate Parish Mission.  They project God’s love for everyone through an action that speaks louder than words.  The visits bring the parish into the experience of Jesus who had “compassion for the people because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”  In a very real way it is Jesus knocking at the door so that people can become aware that Jesus has been in them from all eternity.  A further benefit accruing from parish visits is that they can become an ongoing instrument of parish unity after the parish mission is over.

2.  “Listening Centres” – small faith communities that translate into the local Church’s prophetic mission – are another important aspect of the Oblate Parish Mission.  People gather in these small Scripture-based faith communities to list to the word of God and to one another – becoming strengthened in their faith by the experience, and then, as a community, caring for one another and for others.  Service of the Word becomes the ongoing thrust of the mission, for to announce the Word of God is to evangelize.  Long after the Parish Mission
is over, Listening Centres are meant to carry on as small faith communities that support and give added vitality to the overall parish community.  The long-term success will require the active support of the pastor, pastoral staff and the parish pastoral council.

3.  Great Assemblies and the Sacraments – the Holy Spirit is at the heart of faith renewed and celebrated.  In large measure, this is realized when a priestly people discovers its beginning and its end through living the Word celebrated in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  This experience becomes more alive than ever through the Parish mission, from preparation to follow-up.  It is highlighted in the great liturgical moments of the second week when the community gathers for the liturgy and for the Great Assemblies in the evenings.

 

OBLATE PARISH MISSION VOCABULARY

 

  • Mission:   specific task or duty; calling in life; delegation; sending or being sent on some service.
  • Missionary:  one sent to a place, society to spread religion
  • Local Missionary:  a parishioner from a parish having an Oblate Parish Mission, who becomes part of a team in the parish.  This team is the nucleus of the mission.  The local missionaries include the core team planning for the mission, the home visitors, who are sent in pairs to the homes of the parish families to bring them information about the mission and the Listening Centre host and facilitators.  The local missionary team continues the work of the mission after the Visiting Missionary Team has completed their work.
  • Visiting Missionary: a delegation of priests, sisters and laypeople from outside the parish who dedicate up to one week of their time to visiting all the families of the local parish.  This delegation brings God’s love to the people they visit by listening to them, blessing their homes, praying with them, reaching out and inviting.   The Visiting Missionaries also attend the Listening Centres held during the mission’s first week when they visit homes.
  • Listening Centre:      Listening Centres are the beginning of small Christian communities.  Parishioners from a particular parish zone in the parish gather together, in a specified home (centre), for the purpose of listening to the Word of God and sharing our understanding of it’s meaning in our lives.  During the mission Listening Centres are held three consecutive nights in the same place. Parishioners are encouraged to continue them after the mission.
  • Facilitator:  those persons who lead the Listening Centres, facilitating group discussion, keeping things on track and making sure that everyone is included.
  • Home Visitor:  another term for a local missionary from the parish who brings information to the homes of families in the parish.
  • Great Assemblies:     a gathering of the entire parish community in the church during the second week of the mission.  These evenings are a time to explore specific themes, i.e. The Word, God the Father, Our Brothers and Sisters, etc. through talks, testimonials, skits, and rituals.
  • Zone:  a specific territorial section in the parish is set up primarily to facilitate visits to the homes of parishioners and accommodate the Listening Centres.  Zone size should exceed 40 or 50 families.

 

THE PURPOSE OF AN OBLATE PARISH MISSION?

The Mission is a wake-up call to the local Christian community, helping it become more fully responsible for the future of its Church in a secularized society.  It does so in the following ways:

1)      The Mission is a catalyst to call forth the missionary spirit of its active members – committed persons encouraged to form mature Christian community that reaches out to the uncommitted, the non-practicing and to those searching for the way. “He left the ninety-nine and went after the one.” (Luke 15)

 

2)      The Mission helps the parish grow and expand as a spiritual core, radiating faith, hope, joy, charity, service and a sense of belonging – the result of God’s word experienced and lived.

 

3)      The Mission is meant to help develop a sense of responsibility for the faith-growth of the community’s younger generations so they experience the joy of belonging to the family of God.

 

4)      The Mission, through preparatory and ongoing workshops, promotes and
encouragers leaders in the parish to facilitate the faith community’s ongoing life and integration.  This is done largely through continued outreach and the small faith communities called “Listening Centres”.

 

The Mission promotes Parish community leadership so that the outreach and formation of small Christian communities that emerge through the mission can continue in the faith community and provide ongoing animation of the faith community after the visiting missionary team has left.

 

 

 

 

THE THREE PHASES OF THE MISSION

The Oblate Parish Mission has three distinct, yet complementary phases:

Phase I: PRE-MISSION
The first phase of the Mission, or the Pre Mission, begins about one year prior to the actual Mission.  It is primarily a time of planning, preparation and organizing.  It is a time to form a core planning team where a key person is recruited to coordinate the mission with the assistance of eight to ten other people.  The key things that happen during this phase include:

Ø   Retreat and workshop with the core team

Ø   Organizing the parish into zones

Ø   Recruiting parishioners to become home visitors

Ø   Recruiting parishioners to become facilitators of Listening Centres

Ø   Training volunteers through a series of workshops

Ø   Locating Listening Centres – one home in each zone

Ø   Preparing for the Mission and for the Oblate Missionary Team

Ø   Planning and overseeing the youth component

Ø   Providing awareness of mission to local parishioners

Ø   Generating excitement about the Mission

Ø   Doing two visits to every home in the parish by the local missionary team

PHASE II: Mission

This second phase is the actual Mission itself, which lasts up to two weeks.  This is the time that the Oblate Missionary Team comes to the parish to:

Week 1: Home visits are made to the families in the parish as a follow-up to the first two visits by the Oblate Missionary Team.  This visit is more pastoral in nature.  In the evening, Listening Centres take place for three evenings in a row during this first week of the mission in the designated home.  Daily Mass is celebrated.  In smaller parishes this period lasts for four days while in larger parishes it is seven days.

Week 2: Great Assemblies are held in the Church every evening on a specific theme.  Shut-in parishioners are visited and the Sacrament of the Sick is available to them.  Mass is held daily along with the Sacrament of Reconciliation and on one of the days, the Sacrament of the Sick.

Phase III: Post-Mission

The third phase of the Mission begins after the Visiting Missionary Team has left.  This   is a time for continuing the good work begun with the Mission.  It calls for the ongoing work of the Local Missionary Team and includes:

Ø      Listening Centres - keeping the flame alive.

Ø      Continuing the Home Visits (updating the lists and distributing them appropriately to those maintaining contact.)

Ø      Identifying needs that arose during the mission and finding ways to meet them.

Ø      A three-year commitment on the part of the Oblate missionary team to visit the local parish and reinforce the work of the local missionary team.

 

 

An Oblate Parish Mission is a very exciting opportunity for a parish.  It is a time to reach out, to build community, to celebrate our faith.  It involves the active participate of many parishioners.  In this section we will discuss the various roles and tasks associated with the parish mission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE MISSION

The heart of the Mission and of the Church is the living out of relationships. We cannot live without others and without relationship. Loving one another is a basic necessity for all. The spirituality of the mission flows from this.

1. The unconditional love of God the Father for all of us is projected by the visits of the Local Missionary Team prior to the Mission and by the Visiting Missionary Team during the first week of the Mission. The Gospel is announced more by our lives than by our words. The community experiences the very sentiments of Christ who had “compassion with these people because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. This compassion emerges from firsthand meeting with the people. The gift of the home visitation is Jesus Christ, the living sign of God’s tremendous love for all.

2. Jesus Christ loved the crowds and he taught them. The Listening Centres held in the evenings of the first week of the Mission become the heart of the prophetic mission. This is where service of the WORD is highlighted. The heart of the Mission is to be found here. To announce the Word of God is to evangelize. Through Jesus’ word the people felt the presence of salvation in their midst. The Listening Centres are to be on-going experiences after the Mission, and should evolve into small Church communities present within the larger Church community.

3. The Holy Spirit is at the heart of a faith renewed and celebrated. This takes place to a large measure in the vital acceptance of the Word of God, which is celebrated in the Sacraments. It is the peak of the evangelical action: a priestly people that discovers it’s beginning and it’s end in the celebration of the mystery of Christ represented in the liturgy and especially in the Eucharist. This will be experienced throughout the two weeks but especially in the great liturgical moments of the second week.