Consilio Pastoral

What’s a “Parish Pastoral Council” Anyway?
Who Are We Called to Be? atican II recounts the scriptural challenge given to the laity: “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (1Pt 4:10) The Vatican Council speaks of the church as the “people of God”, baptized into the mission of Jesus. It also emphasized the crucial role of the laitytime and time again: “Inserted as they are in the Mystical Body of Christ by baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit in confirmation, it is by the Lord himself that they are assigned to the apostolate.” (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, 777)

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The mission of Jesus is described in Luke 4:1621: “Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and wentaccording to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed gofree, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’ Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, ‘Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.’” Our mission (vocation) as followers of Jesus is to do what Jesus was called to do (above). This was Jesus’ mission statement…and oursas well! Therefore, a Christian assembly without a profound sense of mission is in big trouble. They

can forget their real purpose and lack a sense of common direction. Pope Paul VI reminded us that we, members of the church founded by Jesus, are essentially called to mission. Our essential call as a Church is to evangelize! New Wine for Fresh Wineskins: hy do we need vibrant parishes? Becausemost Catholics experience God and Christ in their local parish. We need to be open to “the new”, to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the words of scripture and of our church leaders. Why do we need to grow and change? In Matthew 9:17 we read: “No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put newwine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” As the Church learns more about what it means to follow Jesus, we are discovering possible new structures for Pastoral Councils. In “Novo Millennio Inuente”, Pope John Paul II states: “In particular, there is a need to fostergreater involvement of the laity through such participatory structures as pastoral councils and parish assemblies. Pastoral planning with the lay faithful should be a normal feature of all parishes.” We may need to make the transition from the beginning model (old wine) of the business-based Parish Council to a more specifically faith-based model (new wine) of a Parish Pastoral Council. Thedifferences are: From…. To…… A Parish Council….A Pastoral Council A Body of Leaders…………A Leadership Body Coordinating Ministries….Articulating the Mission Crisis Management……… Pastoral Planning Doing Activities…..Empowerment & Oversight Business and Politics…..Prayer and Discernment Competition……………Collaboration Voting………………..Consensus (Next week……Part Two: “Why We Need A Pastoral Council and How ItWorks!”)

Why We Need A Pastoral Council and How It Works!
Developing a Common Vision: Every group (Parish or Council) should have a direction; the question is— “Is everyone going in the same direction?” For example, the left box below shows a parish council in which there is no unified direction; the box on the right shows a parish council in which everyone is going in the same general...