You Share in Christ’s Offices - This Challenge lies at the heart of Plenary Council 2020

You as the Baptised, share in Christ’s

Prophetic, Priestly and Kingly offices.

The title above does set us a challenge and lies at the heart of Plenary 2020. click here to read more background on this challenge.

After Mass last week,  one of our  parishioners indicated he would leave the solving of the church’s problems to the younger people, thereby indicating he did not want to participate or submit input into the synod.

There are two things about that interaction that struck me,

1.)  You are not asked to solve the churches problems, the Plenary Council is not a problem solving exercise. It is a time of opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit and express what lies in our heart which may or may not relate to the issues the church is facing.  The question is -

What do you think God is asking of us in Australia at this time?

Do I personally have a clear idea of what I want to contribute? No I do not, but today I feel that the Holy Spirit opened my heart a little on how I may respond.

I was walking through the park this morning when a frail old gentleman, sitting on the bench, said good morning as I passed by, I said good morning and had the intention of just walking on, but I decided to stop and asked him how he was. Well it poured out, his wife died 12 days ago, they stole her diamond ring at the aged care facility (she had dementia ), he had no grandkids, his daughter's three children all died at a very early age etc.  There is no God he said at one time, in the conversation, and then later he shrugged and said, “thank heavens for Foxtel, otherwise there would be nothing”.  I just listened and let him talk and it was only when I came to write this article for the bulletin that I realised the significance of that  God sent meeting. How wonderful it would be if the Church of Australia was a welcoming place where the broken could gather, where there is physical and spiritual healing and where we are loved.  I know now that that this will definitely be one of my inputs.

2.) the second point that struck  me was, by leaving it to someone else  we are opting out of our baptism, we are setting aside our prophetic gift from God  (take it back God) and embracing the current  society’s norm of outsourcing the problem to someone else.

My insight came out of someone else's pain and my discomfort, not out of great ideas, or moment of great euphoria.  Each of us carries some pain, some hope, and some joy and in all of these, the Holy Spirit talks to us so we need to learn to stop and listen.

Take an opportunity to share your stories, you can do that privately by submitting the information thru the web or by email,  (you do not have to identify who you are) or you can get together with your friend(s), family, parish group such as Family Group, Catenians, Ministry Groups, Prayer group, Mothers Group etc, and gather the stories to submit to the Plenary.  If you do not know how to use a computer, why not write it down and bring it to the parish office, they will make sure that it is submitted.

Hans for the Plenary Team.