Upcoming Community Forum

09-25-2021Weekly ReflectionFr. Charlie Goraieb

Dear Friends,

Over the past year and one-half, our parish has curtailed a lot of the ministries and activities that make up the life and culture of OLMC. While we are not completely past the pandemic, now is the time to begin asking what are the priorities of our parish and how we should go about implementing them?

Some of our pressing pastoral needs are readily evident. They would include:

  • Bringing back the parishioners who have yet to return
  • Retreats and other opportunities for an encounter with the Lord
  • More Adult Faith Formation
  • Opportunities for spiritual growth
  • More Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
  • Equipping people to be evangelistic Catholics
  • Formation of Junior High School students
  • Formation of High School students
  • Support for young singles
  • Support for young families
  • Support for all married couples
  • The promotion of Natural Family Planning
  • Caring for the sick and homebound
  • Additional times for confessions
  • Social events to promote greater unity and community in our parish
  • Our financial position
  • Serving the poor and needy in our midst
  • Growing our school enrollment

This list—which is by no means complete, can be overwhelming. What else is important? Where do we begin? How do we determine our priorities? To help answer these and related questions I have enlisted the help of a friend who is very experienced in leading organizations through a visioning and planning process. Our first step is to gather all of you who would like to share what you see as the needs and priorities of OLMC and what you envision for the parish over the next few years.

If you want to be a part of this initial information-gathering step, you are invited to the Community Forum on Wednesday, October 6th at 7pm in McCready Hall. Come prepared to articulate, in a constructive way, your thoughts and dreams for our parish. In the meantime, please pray for the Lord’s guidance and grace as we seek to become a stronger beacon of light for Tempe and all who look to OLMC for spiritual leadership and hope.

Next Sunday begins Pro-Life Month throughout our Church. In addition to our main focus, the protection of the unborn, our attention is on numerous other pressing issues: euthanasia and end of life questions, the attack on the family, IVF, contraception, racism, human-trafficking and child abuse. While the tragedy of abortion is clearly the greatest evil on this list, that doesn’t exempt us from doing all we can to fight against the other practices as we promote the Culture of Life. Our Catholic anthropology insists that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, thus deserving of our respect. We must also do all we can to oppose the culture of death that seek to advance these evils. In the coming weeks we plan to preach and teach about some of these topics and provide you with information to show how you can be actively involved in opposing them.

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