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Parish: Communion of Communities and the Heart of Leadership

As we are closing the Year of the Parish, with its theme Communion of Communities, we would like to share with you the experience of Suzette Francisco and her son Gio from the Good Shepherd Parish in Las Piñas, a city in Metro Manila. This experience of building communion in the parish was shared during the 4th Philippine Conference on New Evangelization last July 28-30, 2017, at the University of Santo Tomas, in Manila, before more than 6,000 participants.

Suzette: Once at a parish community meeting held last January 2016, we commented that in our parish, fewer people were coming to Mass on Sundays. Those of us who helped in our parish as lector, collector and lay minister shared this observation. Their parish ministries were facing the same difficulty recruiting new members.

We too didn’t know what to do to help but we had a growing desire to do something.
Driven by the desire to share our life of unity to address the problems of our parish, we felt we could help our parish by presenting a program of a family camp we had experienced before, so we approached our priest.

He was surprised after hearing us. He said that he had been praying for some weeks about how to bring the young people of the parish together. And now, here came not just an idea but a ready-made program! He was amazed at how swiftly the Holy Spirit had answered his prayers. So he immediately scheduled the 3-day camp for the end of May. Even if we only had two weeks to prepare, we agreed, “Yes!”.

Gio: Our priest invited the youths from the seven chapels under
the pastoral care of our parish. Surprisingly, 160 young people came, ages 9 to 25, for the three-day camp with the theme, “Love Builds A Family”.

Suzette: It was a big challenge for us, with such a large number of young people of different ages. Since it was held on a Thursday-Saturday, some had to work at their regular jobs. So the few of us available would be at the camp helping distribute snacks and organizing the groups. For us adults we had only to love each child, to see what we can do to help the youth in the practical things, to consult with the parish priest about what is needed.

Gio: The 3-day Camp was a success! Everyone was happy and the young people did not want the camp to end because many realized they had been transformed from strangers to friends, then to being a family. After the summer camp, we began to holding half-day mini youth camps in the parish once a month where we talked about the Gospel and shared experiences on the Art of Loving. Last August 2016, an appeal for help came to the parish for a baby who needed a liver transplant.

Gio Francisco (right) with other parish youth leaders
Gio Francisco (right) with other parish youth leaders

The youths of the parish, in wanting to love, asked the parish community to collect scraps (kalakal in Tagalog) which we could sell to raise money. Inspired by this gesture of love of the youth, the parishioners responded generously. In 5 weeks, we were able to raise around 20,000 pesos with more cash being donated directly to the baby’s parents each time they came for Sunday Mass. It was something that brought the parish community together as one. Inspired and on fire, we had an All Saints’ Day celebration where all dressed up as saints and inviting all the young parishioners. We had a Parade of Saints carrying a banner: ‘Let us be saints together!’

Suzette: We saw that there was quite a number of parents around. Together we called the parents for a short sharing on the Art of Loving, so that they could live it together with their children. The parish priest was so happy, and he said, “Let’s do this every year!”

Gio: Last April 2017 we had our Parish Youth Camp centered around building the Parish as a Communion of Communities with the theme, “Love Keeps Us Together”. With only two weeks to inform them, we were surprised that 260 signed up for the five-day camp. This time the parish youth leaders had grown to more than 30 boys & girls. The desire for unity had grown among all.

“Many felt deeply the need for unity in the parish so that the parish became even more a family.”

At the parish fiesta celebration this year, some elders were so happy to notice that many young people belonging to different groups, organizations, and ministries were intermingling with one another like a family. It hadn’t been like this for so many years.

The parish priest: Fr. German Patiga of the Society of African Missionaries (SMA)
The parish priest: Fr. German Patiga of the Society of African Missionaries (SMA)

Earlier this year, our priests thought of re-launching the parish newsletter in line with the Year of the Parish. Our priest, after reading an article I wrote asked if I could help and join the new team of writers.

He opened the doors to everyone who wanted to be a part of it. We have writers who are in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 70’s. It was quite challenging for me to be the youngest and the Editor-in-Chief. When we had our first meeting they said to me, “Gio, tell us what to do and we will do it. That’s how it is in the corporate publication setting, the Editor-in-Chief tells the writers what to do.”

But I knew I was there to help give life to Jesus in our midst and He would not be there if only my voice was heard. There should be communion among us. Whenever there was a decision to be made – example on topics to feature, or who would write this article, I don’t decide first, but rather, we meet, we welcome all suggestions, and then we decide together, always doing things in unity.

We were able to release our first re-launch and release our first issue last April in full-color, 12 pages, with a new format including the Word of God and an experience of living the Gospel, with 2,000 copies released. Truly, we can say that every issue of the parish newsletter is a product of the communion among us, of Jesus in our midst.

Suzette: On another note, in November last year, our priest asked me to share my experiences and also my ideas as a parishioner, which might help our priests serve the parish better. It was a talk given to 9 priests. I said, YES, though a little intimidated by the thought of giving a talk to priests. The talk was on “Church as Communion”.

Our parish priest felt this was very timely since the following year the local Churches would be celebrating the theme of “Parish as Communion of Communities”. But, it became apparent that there was something even more significant than the timeliness of the following year’s theme. Each priest had begun to feel the need to come together regularly to develop among themselves this spirit of communion: updating one another; even going out to play sports together. This was something they had seldom done before, given their busy schedules.

Last January, our community felt that this year could be the right time to share our spirituality through a one-day gathering as a contribution to the 2017 theme, “Communion of Communities”.

Parish - Communion of Communities and the heart of leadership
Youth of the parish with Fr John Gallagher, SMA, with young people of the Focolare and adults from the local community working together for the Youth Camp

We went to the parish priest, but stopped short of telling him what we wanted to do for the parish. Instead, we asked him how he wanted us to help the Parish. He said we were right on time because he had planned to gather representatives from the different parish organizations & ministries, including those from the seven chapels for a leadership formation.

Many felt deeply the need for unity in the parish so that the parish became even more a family. However, what they wanted was not the usual leadership training seminar but one centered around a spirituality. We asked our priests for their specific objectives. In the end, the program included The Art of Loving and Jesus in the midst: the heart of leadership!
About 100 parish leaders came.

In the end, there were many concrete steps to help put into practice the life of communion. A very strong moment came when two leaders reconciled at the end after some time that they were not talking to each other. In his conclusion, our parish priest said now we are starting to live as a family already and among the priests, they have also started to live this life of communion.

After that one-day leadership formation, the parish priest asked me to meet the parish core group to present the inputs from the goal setting workshop we did. There was a moment of heated arguments.

Gio: Noticing that one of them was about to walk out, I suggested that we could somehow compromise or meet halfway on their suggestions. They calmed down and started to listen.
Suzette: Following this gesture of Gio’s, I felt I had only to love and try to understand each one. So, to give importance to that leader, I encouraged her also to contribute also with her expertise and invited her to join me in the next steps we had to do. She was happy to join the team.

It’s not easy knowing we are few but we gave our “YES” believing that love among us that generates Jesus in our midst will bring everything ahead in our desire to make our parish truly a communion of communities. The parish priest had asked for follow-up leadership formations. It’s not easy knowing we are few but we gave our “YES” believing that love among us that generates Jesus in our midst will bring everything ahead in our desire to make our parish truly a communion of communities.

Suzette and Gio Francisco

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