Page 2, 15th September 1972

15th September 1972

Page 2

Page 2, 15th September 1972 — Mission priests share their experiences
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Mission priests share their experiences

FOR THE first time representatives of all the bodies who give parish missions have met to exchange experiences. Seventy-six priests from 12 religious orders and the Catholic Missionary Society have spent three days reviewing the effectiveness of the missions they preaeh, and pooling their experience to suggest possible improvements.
The first General Congress of Missioners, which was held at the Newman College of Education. Birmingham, was organised by the National Parish Missions Council, a body founded last year to coordinate and promote the work of those priests who specialise in parish missions.
The priests agreed that there was a need to improve the preparations for a mission. The missioner must fit himself by a thoroughgoing spiritual and intellectual training. And each parish needed a preliminary campaign of preparation involving the parish clergy, the nuns in the area and the schools,
As the people of the parish were drawn in and involved, the sick and the suffering could not be forgotten.
Special bidding-prayers at Mass, vigils of prayer and days of recollection helped to set the scene. 'rhe missioners should get to know the parish clergy and the lay helpers and if possible should preach at Sunday Mass before the mission opened.
PERSONAL
And to prepare the ground it was essential for the parish clergy to make personal visits all around the parish. Lay help and interest could be enlisted to design advertising material,
Posters, car-stickers and handbills.
Some thought that this preparation should last for a minimum of three months, while others thought that this would be the maximum.
The missioners agreed that each religious order had a distinctive approach to the preaching of a mission and that it would be wrong to lose this variety. The missioners agreed that they had to continue to preach the traditional basic truths. of the Faith. but in a style which was modern and relevant.
All agreed that the mission service should be one hour long, but the members divided evenly on the question of whether this mission service should be a Mass or a service specially designed for the oc, casion. But they were unanimous that missioners must also make individual contact with the people by visiting them in their homes.
FOLLOW-UPS Little had been done in the past to reinforce the effect of a mission. Many felt that this was the job of the parish clergy, but the missioners agreed that follow-up visits would be worthwhile or that, at very least, a personal letter to the parishioners from the missioners would help sustain the effect of their preaching.
The conclusions of the congress arc to be studied in detail by the National Parish Missions Council and by a subcommittee of the major religious superiors. The. congress asked that a report on its proceedings be sent to the bishop and to the National Conference of Priests, meeting at Newman College, Birmingham.




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