Greetings in Christ, all!
I’m typing this bulletin article on the last day of my retreat/vacation and things went very well. Right around this time every year, I go on a time away with Fr. Geoff. Fr. Geoff and I grew up together and have been basically inseparable since we were 14 years old. He is an order priest: an Oblate of St. Francis DeSales and currently, he is serving as President of the Salesian High School in Toledo.
Each year we get together (it’s usually the only time we see each other) and spend a week or so at a friend’s house, using the time to pray, rest, read and share what God is doing.
Anyway, this year’s time away is in the books and it was a real blessing. I prayerfully gave the Lord both of our parish families: St. Mark and Holy Family. I asked Him to guide us and lead us into joyful holiness. I spent a lot of time thinking about all I have learned about this new assignment and doing some planning.
One of the things that struck me is that I’m not sure what you all have been told about merger/cluster of parishes, but that I should probably run it by you. Holy Family and St. Mark are “clustered” parishes. There are two types of clustered parishes in the Diocesan Plan: those clustered with the intent to merge and those who are simply clustered. As I understand it, we are simply clustered.
What is the difference between our reality and a merger? A merged parish is a new Church reality made up of two or more parishes that had their own individual identity. A Cluster simply refers to two individual parishes that share resources. That’s us.
Holy Family and St. Mark have and will retain their own individual identity. What we will work on over the next year is what we can and should share besides priests. I did this a lot at my last assignment and it really ended up being a blessing. I’m going to proceed slowly on this, of course, as I simply don’t know enough to do much intelligently at this point.
For me, the focus of this first year will be learning as much as I can and praying on it; I assume I won’t change anything substantive unless I have to and even then, I’ll only do it after a lot of consultation and prayer.
For all of us, I’m going to ask us to take this year to get used to the new reality: new cluster, new pastor, new schedule, etc. We now have two priests doing what three did in the past and we’ll need to adjust our expectations. Pray for Fr. Dan and me whenever you think about it, please.
Well…this is a lot of typing. I hope you find it helpful. I am grateful to the Lord that He gave me the gift of serving and loving you.
fjk