Canadian Martyrs Church

Report on the October 3, 2009 Town Hall

Town Hall Meeting on the Pastoral Plan

Canadian Martyrs Parish

October 3, 2009, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m

Final Report

 

 

Twenty-one parishioners met in the parish centre on Oct. 3, 3009 to discuss the report the Pastoral Planning Team had prepared on the conclusions it had drawn from the parish survey conducted earlier this year. The report,  ‘Building on What You Told Us’, was distributed to the parish email list and placed on the vestibule table at the back of the church as well as on the parish website (www.canadianmartyrs.org).  

 

After an opening prayer and a brief introduction in which participants were asked to share their thoughts on the major issues raised in the report and other important aspects of our life at Canadian Martyrs, they split into smaller groups corresponding to the three priorities: ‘Living Our Faith’, ‘Building Our Community’ and ‘Running our Parish’ (see workshop reports, below). 

After a final plenary session in which participants heard the reports of the workshops and shared further thoughts and reactions, the meeting closed with a prayer. 

 

The general conclusion of the Town Hall was that the Pastoral Planning Team was proceeding in the right direction and had identified some of the major challenges and opportunities Canadian Martyrs Parish will be dealing with in the next few years. The task before the Team now is to come up with recommendations as to specific priorities, actions to address them, the human and financial resource implications of what is being proposed, and some indicators as to how progress will be measured.

 

Workshop #1: Living Our Faith

 

Participants began by sharing what came first to mind when asked “What does ‘living your faith’ mean to you?” Some of the answers were:

• being engaged with Christ, internally by deepening and strengthening our relationship with Christ and externally by reaching out in Christ’s name to those seeking God

• learning about God and discovering God by caring for others

• understanding our Christian faith and practicing our Christian principles

• becoming more Christ-like through love of Christ and of others

• growing in the living body of Christ that is the Church, through our life of faith and of service in our parish and in the community

 

In discussing these responses, we saw that ‘living our faith’ means ‘living in/with/for/through Christ’ - in a word, becoming Christ-like. We also discussed four inter-related ways of living our faith, each of which builds on and reinforces the others and most of which are reflected in our personal lives and our parish ministries. These are:

 

1. Expressing our faith through worship and prayer. We celebrate and enrich our relationship with Christ in the Mass and other sacred liturgies of worship, in private and public prayer, through the sacraments, etc.

 

The group felt that our Eucharistic celebrations are warm and dynamic (e.g., choir, children at the altar for the ‘Our Father’, offertory procession, etc.) but thought that the parish should look at ways in which to get more adult parishioners actively involved in the various liturgical ministries (choir, décor, liturgy, etc.) .  There were specific suggestions to give more prominence to the prayer group and to open the Church an hour a day for people who want to pray privately.

 

2. Sharing our faith by bringing the ‘Good News’ to those in our community and outside it who are seeking God. We do this primarily through the RCIA for those seeking to join the Church, but also through our parish discussion groups and parish visits, sharing our church with other Catholic communities (Deaf, Tamil, Madagascar), our ecumenical relations with nearby Christian churches, our support for the Church’s missions, and the witness we bear in our private and professional lives.

 

Nevertheless, the group felt that the parish needs to reflect on what it means ‘to evangelize’ in Canadian society today and whether we are doing enough to make our parish known as a welcoming faith community. One suggestion was for an attractive brochure on Canadian Martyrs that could be distributed to households in Ottawa East - perhaps in time for this Advent or next Easter. Another suggestion was to make it a high priority to strengthen and expand the RCIA team. 

 

3. Putting our faith into practice by reaching out to those in need. Christ constantly enjoins us to care for the less fortunate and the Church has articulated this obligation in the ‘corporal and spiritual works of mercy’: feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the afflicted, welcome the stranger, etc. 

 

The parish already supports Development and Peace, the Shepherds of Good Hope and the Ottawa Mission, Centretown Churches Food Bank, Immaculata food baskets, etc. and we recognized that even more is done privately by parishioners. Nevertheless, it was felt that there is room for more personal engagement as a parish - perhaps by working more closely with St. Joseph’s parish, which has an active social justice program, and by making it a priority to have a parish ‘beatitudes team’ for home visits to the elderly, the sick, etc.

 

4. Understanding our faith, so that we can discern not only what God is telling us in Scriptures and the Church in our creed and doctrines, but also what all this means in our daily lives and in the world around us. 

 

Outside the weekly homilies, most people have little opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the basic tenets of Catholicism beyond what they learned in high school and to reflect on the challenges to living our faith in the world today. The group felt that the parish could be doing more in this regard: annual retreats, study groups on scriptures and Catholic doctrine, talks on timely issues affecting Catholics. Where there is not a critical mass of parishioners at Canadian Martyrs, we could look at joint activities with other churches nearby. Specific suggestions were to find short articles on these topics that could be inserted weekly in the bulletin or on the parish website, and to post summaries of Fr. Robert’s sermons on the website.

Workshop #2: Building Our Community

 

The first part of the discussion was on what brings us together as a way to validate the Parish Survey results. Parishioners described the “knowing of the community” in order to build relationships to the people and the church community. We need to be aware of the needs of the community in order to be supporting and caring. To build community we need:

• to link to outside;

• to be comfortable in our community;

• to be able to make a commitment; and

• to have opportunity.

What we are doing well

We continued the discussion by asking the group what they felt Canadian Martyrs parishioners were doing well. The Ministries or events mentioned were:

Youth Group,

Music/Choir,

Active Ministries,

Family Mass,

Greeters,

Coffee after Sunday Mass,

Pizza suppers, and

Seniors Lunch.

 

The words used to describe the Canadian Martyrs community:

Welcoming

Family friendly, diverse,

Broad spiritual base,

Food,

Respect for the volunteer,

Involved with other parishes – Shrove Tuesday/Palm Sunday.

What more can we do

Suggestions for what we could do:

Ministries

-draw on ministry/activities to reach out,

-communicate that Ministries are open to contribution,

-continue to seek new members,

-make requests very specific,

-appreciate the pool of willing resources/volunteers

All parishioners

-greet new people that sit near to us;

-look for avenues to include others – it was raised that those bring gifts during the offertory are members of a family; ask new adult members to bring up,

Specific Ministry suggestions

-grief support group – open up to include those facing other losses – job, economic, other areas which raise stress levels (how will these needs be made known), 

-tap into training available.

What resources have we to use to strengthen community:

St. Paul’s – guest speakers

Immaculata – consider book fair

Youth – minding children especially during events on Saturdays – having childcare option – more attendance by those with young families and our students – volunteer hours

Look to see if we can find a climber that can be placed inside with youth supervision during coffee after Mass or a play area outside

For those new to the Parish – welcome brochures, profile ministries in bulletin (perhaps with tear off part for those wanting further info or those interested in joining Ministry)

Highlight small specific tasks, clear time commitment (respect time of the volunteer),

Include families of all kinds

Bring up box with intentions of the Parish

Labour events – highlight Parish clean –up (good food after), shoebox and any community fund raising events, can we run a winter carnival

For seniors, every two weeks- drop in for tea, cookies and chat

Consider logistical support – those that may have recently lost use of ability to use car.

Consider what can be done to welcome seasonal seniors.

In summary

In the wrap up, Fr. Robert spoke of Jean Vanier’s philosophy about community: we are challenged to “be” community, not just develop community…then it will all come together as it is supposed to.

 

Workshop #3: Running Our Parish

 

So that we might gain confidence to deal with current and future challenges, participants were reminded just how far the parish has come in its history. The discussion then moved to a variety of issues and suggestions:

 

• If the church itself were to be made more available to outside groups, it might improve the vibrancy of the parish and ‘introduce it to a broader community’

• How to improve participation in the parish, e.g. increase the number of volunteers, working groups etc.

• It was suggested that in encouraging greater participation, ‘finite’ and  well defined tasks work well e.g. mittens from the tree at Christmas with specific gift requests. 

• A suggestion was made that Parish Council delegate more of its work to more operational sub-committees so that Parish Council might assume more of a ‘policy making role’ to discuss the general direction of the parish

• A comment was made, shared by many, that improving the finances of the parish should not become a preoccupation as if the other challenges , (e.g. growing the parish, living our faith, making the parish run better) are addressed, ‘then the money will follow’.

• It appears that the 5:00 PM Mass and 10:00 AM Mass communities are developing individual cultures; ways should be found of bringing these groups together from time to time e.g. have a single Mass for the Feast of Canadian Martyrs in 2010.

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