Immaculate Conception  & 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

I try and do my best to include context to as many things as possible.   Many of you have commented how much you appreciate the historical pieces in a lot of my homilies. I realized last week, that I hadn’t included much context to some of the stuff that has been going on lately.  In concert with the Archbishop´s recently initiated pastoral planning process, and in an effort to implement his wider vision of Discipleship for the whole diocese, the joint pastoral councils began working on a 5 year plan for the parishes.  The purpose has been to put together a series of goals and a process of
implementing these goals, to embrace a spirit of discipleship in our parishes as the Archbishop has asked.

This theme of Discipleship is something I touch on consistently in my homilies, so though the term may be unfamiliar to some of you, the concept isn’t.  It is based on an encounter or meeting with Jesus that then leads one to go forth and share the Good News of the Gospel with other people. It presents an alternative to the “smile and get through it” life that we sometimes live.  Though Discipleship as a way of life has been around since the time of Jesus, it has recently made a resurgence.   It has new verbiage in response to a “maintenance mindset” that has at times sunk into church cultures throughout the Western world.  The first main push was in the call for a New
Evangelization in the Second Vatican Council.  It  was the impetus for many of the things that we now see as common place like increased singing, prayers in the vernacular, and increased liturgical preaching. 

The Discipleship mindset consistently brings us back to previous encounters we have had with Christ, and facilitates the opportunities for further encounter and deeper experiences of the love of Christ.  Our Joint Councils have utilized the groundwork of another parish that recently went through the planning process to help spur ideas.  We are now at the stage where we are deciding on some specific goals in five main areas: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Service and Evangelization.  Each one of these key areas falls under the general support of our Mission Statement.  Our mission statement reads: “The mission of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Immaculate Conception parishes is to encounter, experience and share the transformative love of Jesus Christ”. It has been under this
lens that many of the things we have implemented recently, have come about.  These include the use of Flocknote, live-streaming of Masses, the outreach center and the creation of the Director of Evangelization position.  These were specific embodiments that came about because of general need during the quarantine, but were guided by the 5 year plan and Mission Statement.  These will be key to everything we do going forward.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Beth Rosales for all of her wonderful work over the last 8 years.  Unfortunately, due to the quarantine this is the most public forum I can address you all in. I will also be mentioning her at our Livestream Mass. As we announced a few months ago in the bulletin, Beth had decided to step back from her role in ministry at the end of the RE school year.  At that time we planned on having a big party to honor all her time and commitment over the years in a more public way, but are unable to do that due to the circumstances.  She has been a major contributor and
true witness of  Christ´s presence in our communities and her breadth of experience has served us all well.  We thank her for all her work and assure her of our prayers in all she does going forward.  Thank you Beth for these last 8 years!

Fr. Joseph Altenhofen