The Missionary Parish
by David Jackson, Laudato Si Animator for the Leeds Diocese
The subtitle of Pope Leo’s latest encyclical: ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ reads: ‘On Safeguarding the Human Person in the time of Artificial Intelligence.’ Pope Leo bases his critique and ‘disarming’ of AI on the solid foundation of the Church’s Social Teaching. It is some 50 years since the Synod of Bishops declared: ‘the work of justice and peace is a constitutive element in the preaching of the Gospel.’ A group of us set up a parish J&P Group soon after – inspired by those who pioneered the present Diocesan J&P Commission. The remnant of our parish group still exists – as does the need for parishes of mission and service in the name of justice.
The Church has come a long way! From the time when an anonymous parishioner scrawled the word ‘Communists’ on a notice in our Church porch advertising an early meeting of the new J&P Group to Pope Leo using the Church’s social teaching as the basis for judging Artificial Intelligence. But how have times changed?
For over 30 years I have received the daily meditation from the Centre for Action and Contemplation – headed until recently by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. A recent meditation was entitled: ‘Re-Enlivening Ministries’. He turns to St Paul’s advice to the early Christians to re-envision renewal today. For Paul faith is a ‘loving, communal’ way of life. Can a parish be the same?
‘We must begin to validate Paul’s original teaching on “many gifts and many ministries” (1 Corinthians 12:4–11) that together “make a unity in the work of service” (Ephesians 4:12–13). We need Christian people who are trained in, validated for, and encouraged to make home and hospital visits; do hospice work and jail ministry; support immigrants and refugees; help with soup kitchens; counsel couples before, during, and after marriage; teach classes in parenting; offer ministries of emotional, sexual, and relational healing; help with financial counselling; build low-cost housing; take care of the elderly; run thrift centres—all of which put Christian people in immediate touch with other people.’
A question?
How far does my parish mandate parishioners to these ministries of service? Answers will vary. We ‘do liturgy’ and ‘build loving communities’ fairly or even very well! But mission? Many parishioners may well be involved in such work – in schools, hospitals, care homes and social services, but do they feel they have been ‘mandated’ by parish leadership or the community so as to regard these roles as ‘ministries’? Much depends on the sort of leadership we experience in our parish. Is it in any way synodal – shared, or does it remain more ‘command and control’? Richard ends his meditation with a short description of the kind required:
‘Authentic leadership, I think, implies people who can spot, affirm, train, support, finance, and validate gifts and leadership wherever they see them in actual practice (think multipliers instead of monarchs). Then we are not all striving toward the top but striving toward supporting the supreme work of love flowing into the world.’
The conviction grows that as one day there was a danger that the work of justice and peace – we can add now care of creation – heeding the voices of the poor and of the earth our common home – could be safely left to a small group – now that work is beginning to be seen to take the form of ministries open to all the baptised – not the charism of a few but something that defines and is the DNA of a parish community. Thus it was in St Paul’s day. The work of ‘authentic leadership’ in any parish is to identify, nurture, support and celebrate the ministries of service and of mission.
Richard Rohr was once asked why the title of his Centre was ‘Centre for Action and Contemplation’. And which word was the most important. He said ‘And’ was the important word! Either lead to and define the other. Faith defined with St Paul as a ‘communal, loving way of life’ – a parish working for justice and peace – has to be embedded in experiences of union with the Divine – achieved by the steady conscious practice of some form of silent, contemplative prayer!
Surprised?
Contemplation always leads to action – both to build communities engaged in the Church’s mission of justice, peace and care for our common home.
SOURCES for action – in J&P and in contemplative prayer
Pope Leo’s Encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas www.vatican.va/leo-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
Centre for Action and Contemplation – www.cac.org
The World Community for Christian Meditation – Fr Lawrence Freeman OSB – www.wccm.org
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