Blessed Sacrament Parish has a Faith Based Widows & Widowers Group who get together once a month at a local restaurant for a social evening with the objective of providing moral support and friendship to anyone who has lost a loved one.

For further details, please contact Shirley Hamre at 824-0692

On Saturday, April 14th, pastoral council members, ministry leaders, and concerned parishioners spent a morning reflecting on our identity as a parish, and the challenge to continue to move forward in a positive spirit. The collage on the front is a collection of words and phrases that came out of a brainstorming exercise where small groups shared images and words that came to mind when they thought about what it meant to be a member of our parish. If a word was mentioned more than once its size is magnified in the collage. It’s no surprise that ‘community’ was a word that kept appearing over and over.

This ‘communal’ exercise, along with a few other initiatives, such as some preliminary planning for the parish’s one hundred year jubilee, and a ministry planning take home work-sheet for ministry leaders, follow an approach known as appreciative inquiry. This ‘life–centred’ vision can be found in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:8-9) where he encourages a community fraught with division and turmoil. Instead of simply getting down about what’s wrong with the community, or rebuking the people he advocates a change of focus towards things that give life and hope, seeing the goodness and wonder of God at work in every setting:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

I take great ‘hope’ by investigating and reflecting on where we are as a parish from this perspective. It was a hope-filled meeting we had on Saturday afternoon as well, when the parish council met and looked at a number of key elements of our parish life. Things we could celebrate, and also areas that could use improvement.
One of the greatest challenges a parish, or any ‘community’ of people can face is that of barriers to communication. While we do want to look at things from a positive perspective, I also want to assure you that we want to hear from you if you find something difficult or challenging as we walk through a time of change and adjustment here at the parish.

I believe it’s much better for me or Fr. Francis to be able to hear from you directly and have a conversation and try to address concerns, than for resentments to be held over unresolved issues. Believe me, as priests we’re human beings, learning as we go, and need your help to grow and be a part of this community. While I’m away Fr. Francis is more than happy to meet with you, and discover ways we can grow together and understand each other.

Also, as way to grow in understanding of who we are as Companions of the Cross Priests serving you, we’ll be having an ‘open house’ info session on Tuesday, May 15th at 7 p.m. in the parish hall to introduce you to other members of the Companions of the Cross Spiritual family.
Many of the concerns and ideas raised at both the morning and afternoon sessions on Saturday will continue to be discussed in the coming months as the pastoral council meets again in May, and begins to identify goals and objectives for the coming year. It is hoped that a similar town hall meeting to discuss our parish identity through the process of appreciative inquiry can be planned for the fall

submitted by: Fr. Randy Hendriks CC