Reflecting on this week’s Scriptures
“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” resonates strongly with me this week as two of us were invited to the “Rimutaka Gate to Plate” meal at Rimutaka Prison.
We were warmly welcomed by both prisoners and staff; experienced attentive and professional hospitality and enjoyed a veritable feast of delicious foods, finishing up with an amazing dessert which exploded into a multitude of different and exciting tastes. It sure looked and tasted like the goodness of the Lord.
While we were at the prison we learnt the number of people in prison, the number of children impacted by parents in prison, and the number of staff working in Corrections to change offenders’ behaviours. We also learnt that 60% of prisoners are unable to read or write. The Department of Corrections are challenging themselves to reduce re-offending, particularly amongst young offenders, by 25% in 2017. They said they can work on changing behaviours, providing the education and developing work skills while people are in prison. Their challenge to us, in the wider community, is to provide the chance for employment for ex-prisoners so that they can support themselves and their families, create a different life pathway and find ways of belonging and participating in our society and communities.
Such a challenge can be like “ the uncomfortable truth” which led Jesus to ask his apostles if they wanted to leave, or the choice Joshua poses to his people whether they will “serve the Lord” or the gods of the Amorites. In both instances the choice is whether to acknowledge that the Lord is our God and the source of eternal life, with all the challenges and discomforts that choice may bring. Last week, we expressed hopes for our new parish community. Some of the hopes we expressed will lead to choices that are not always comfortable. At some points we will need to learn to give way to one another, and none of us finds this easy. We will also be invited to move from our places of comfort, to reach out to those on the margins of our parish community and of society. To find our way “to live in love as Christ loved us”, in our new parish community, we need to pray that, like the Ephesians, we can constantly be cleansed by the “words of Eternal life”, so that we can respond to the invitation of Pope Francis to move beyond our church structures to the people and communities who are marginalised in our society.
Discernment – Community
How will we be a Community? Who is in our Community?
Over the last three weeks we have named our fears, and our hopes, for the new Catholic Parish of Wellington South. This week we begin to reflect on how we will we live out our Vision. We hold the hopes we have named for Community as we reflect on how we will be a community and who is in our wider Community.
We follow God and are led to God through the Holy Spirit in a Church Community. We are nourished by the words and Eucharist of Jesus Christ. We don’t do it alone. By being here we have made a choice to gather and worship as a Community.
A handout with hopes for Community accompanies this week’s newsletter. We want so much from and for our Community, and we are prepared to contribute to that Vision. Look closely at the feedback and what you are seeing in our hopes for Community is remarkably similar to St Paul’s image of Church as Marriage: caring, sharing, nurturing, supporting, communicating, loving, loyalty, tolerance, thankfulness, sensitivity, creativity, courteousness, equality, family orientation, faithfulness, respectfulness, selflessness, thoughtfulness, a shared vision, uniqueness, commitment
At the same as we reflect on our Church and Parish Community, we also pause and look out to who is in our wider Community—people, communities, groups that we support,
reach out to, get support and inspiration from, who we are obliged to, responsible for, inspired by, anyone who lives in the area from the Coast to the Harbour.
We pray:
“Lord, where would we go? – This is our place – our Parish, our Community,
this is the Church in which you share your words of eternal life”