At the meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council held in October’13, it was decided to have goals/targets for our Parish for a three year term (2013-2016).
The goals/targets suggested were based on a letter received, from the Archdiocese.
Hence, the following goals were decided for forthcoming three years:
- Year 2014 : Family
- Year 2015 : Civic and Political Issues
- Year 2016 : Formation of Children’s Groups
The modus operandi would be to have a special Committee every year who would take the Parish forward on the designated goals of the year.
Accordingly for the year 2014, the Year of Family Committee (YOF Committee) has been formed.
The present committee comprises of 4 married couples, 6 PPC members, the CCO Co-ordinator and the Spiritual Directors. Presently, from among these committee members, 4 Couples and a PPC member are undergoing training at the Training for Family Enrichment (TFE) Course conducted by the Archdiocese at Goregaon Seminary. These members will then go on to form the Family Cell at the end of the Year. The Family cell will be commissioned on December 28, 2014.
VISION STATEMENT
Christian Families transformed and empowered for Christ’s Mission.
AIMS OF THE YOF COMMITTEE
- Meeting the spiritual, emotional and material needs of families.
- Reaching out to families in times of needs, crisis and difficulties.
- Organising talks, seminars and training programs with themes connected to families.
- Strengthening the family bonds.
- Evolving a spirituality of the family that is relevant to times.
- Making the family a vibrant domestic Church.
OBJECTIVES OF THE YOF COMMITTEE
The YOF Committee directs its energies towards:
- Building the family into a domestic Church, where parents are the first catechists and source of missionary zeal and postulate
- Providing a spirituality of the Family; Family catechesis especially the centrality of spousal love and parental love in the Divine Plan particularly imparting Sunday Catechism for the parents of First Holy Communicants so that right in the early age of the children, parents are equipped to bring them up in Christian spirituality
- Making Christ the centre of each home so that His values permeate family life which is reflected in daily family prayer, Scripture reading and reflection; remembering that ‘the family that prays together stays together’
- Preparing animator couples who can take on leadership roles in the Parish Family Apostolate, and act as counsellors and healers in traumatic family situations
- Making families aware of their role to become leaven in society and be agents of change against social evils like caste, superstitions, etc.
- Becoming pro-life and promoting openness to life as a gift from God
- Counselling and supporting families in crisis; like those in inter-caste marriages, separated, divorced, young widows and widowers, migrant families, single parent families, etc.
- Organising Family Life Education programmes, Workshops on family catechesis, family management, sex education for youth -school/college students
- Having a ‘watchdog’/observer body keeping a track of the various government policies/schemes that would benefit or harm families and take relevant actions accordingly
- Including in the service of the Family Cell for the vulnerable sections of the community such as Senior Citizens, children and women
- Networking with the SCCs and Parish Cells/ Associations.
- Encouraging the families to witness their faith boldly, in public.