“Parish is my home” appears to be a slogan, but lots of parishioners feel this truly from their hearts.
Of course it is impossible to ask all parishioners to have the same feeling. After all, the establishment of “Parish is my home” requires everyone’s participation.
The master of the house of course is Jesus himself. Through the Bishop and his assistants, the priests are altogether helping His people to walk the road towards eternity.
The parish life of today is a miniature model of the future kingdom in heaven. “Where there is kindness, there is love, God is always there!”
“Humanity” is the external sign of those who belong to the heavenly kingdom.
Although the church is a spiritual community, it also has an external structure. The Parish Pastoral Council is the highest structure representing all parishioners, assisting the priests to serve the congregation.
You might be interested to know the current situation of the Parish in the recent two years.
Total Parishioners：3586(2007) 3611(2008) 3579(2009)
Catechumen： 95 (2008) 112 (2009)
Newly baptized Catholics: 101 (2008) 81 (2009)
Confirmation: 51 (2008) 52 (2009)
First Communion: 34 (2008) 31 (2009)
Marriage (Validation of Marriage): 18 (21) [2008] 16 (22) [2009]
The number of participants in Sunday Masses (including the Anticipated Sunday Masses on Saturday) are about 2,500 in average. However, the Filipino parishioners may account for over 50 percent of the total.
In addition, the number of Validation of Marriage is no less than Marriage in ratio. To my understanding, most of the parishioners mistakenly thought that both sides of the couple need to be Catholics in order to allow holding the wedding ceremony at the church. In fact, it is a requirement that even if only one side of the new bride/broom is Catholic, their wedding must be celebrated at the church.
Back to the topic, no matter “Parish is our home” or “Parish is our family”, we should live with this attitude in our parish. Is this not the response of “Love”?