Archive of 2012 Website posts on Uniting Parish activity

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"RENEWING THE CHURCH IN NEW BRUNSWICK":
ENTERS COMBINATION PHASE



Notes from Oct. 16 meeting can be read by clicking here.

NEW:OCT 28: St.Ladislaus airs concerns in public after agreement
REMAINING MEETINGS: NOV 20 at St. Mary's

NEW: Notes from the Sept 18 meeting.

SEPT 23: In a week of intense meetings, Sacred Heart, St.Joseph and St. Ladislaus parishes, along with Catholic Charities office of social justice, have submitted their request to combine to the "Renewing the Church in New Brunswick" leadership. An open parish meeting will be held October 11 at 7pm in the parish hall to discuss the process thus far.

AUGUST 25: Parish Council members from Sacred Heart, St. Joseph and St. Ladislaus parishes held a two-and-a-half hour meeting Aug. 23, agreeing to meet again in September, as the "Renewing the Church in New Brunswick" process reaches the phase of parishes actively relating toward new combinations. Thanks to Natalie Borisovets, Deacon Nelson Torres, Tom McNellis and guest participants Tom Szallai and Joseph Szabo for their contributions to the Aug. 23 meeting. 
AUG 21: Minutes from this meeting are available HERE
JUNE 5: Unofficial notes from latest meeting are available HERE

NEW:MAY 22: Minutes from the May 15 meeting are availableHERE.

NEW:MAY 15: At the May 15 "Renewing" meeting at St. Ladislaus Parish on Somerset St., Marianne Majewski, executive director of Catholic Charities, presented a concept paper proposing that the mission of Catholic Charities be merged within the life of a new parish in the city. Read their proposalHERE

NEW:APRIL 24: Sacred Heart hosted the most recent Deanery Council meeting. Thanks to those who helped provide hospitality. Next meeting is May 15 as we draw closer to a decision of a new parish structure for Hub City. HERE is a list of ministries at all the New Brunswick parishes.

NEW:Unofficial notes from the March 20 meeting are now available HERE.

NEW: The decisive phase of Renewing the Church in New Brunswick began Tuesday, March 20 with an appearance and presentation by Bishop Bootkoski, along with dispensing of demographic data by Jeff Korgen for the City of New Brunswick.

Among the Bishop's comments: "We're not touching the people who are right in front of us... We can sustain 3 parishes, how can we sustain 7?" He also restated the realities of new migration patterns, decreased parish finances and priestly vocations as the factors for the process.

Msgr. Kerrigan, Deacon Torres, Tom McNellis and Natalie Borisovets represented Sacred Heart.

For a glimpse at some of the data our reps are poring through,CLICK HERE.

For more information on the process as a whole, CLICK ON THE DIOCESE'S PLANNING PAGE.
The next meeting is Tuesday, April 24 at Sacred Heart.

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OLDER NEWS: Sacred Heart parishioners were well-represented in both numbers and voices during the Diocese of Metuchen's second Information Night on the Renewing the Church in New Brunswick process Feb. 2.

Deanery Council reps Tom McNellis and Natalie Borisovets, along with Joe Grau, made very helpful comments, and were backed by several dozen congregants who met at St. Peter School for the evening.

PRAYER FOR THE RESTRUCTURING PROCESS
Lord, you alone know the plans you have for us,
plans to prosper us, not harm us,
plans to bring about the future you hope for.
Help us who call New Brunswick home,
- we who have as our patron the Sacred Heart of Jesus
along with the powerful intercession of St. Mary, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Joseph,
the apostle St. Peter, the prophet St. John the Baptist,
and the king St. Ladislaus –
help us to be attentive to the work of your Spirit among us
in this time and this age
and among your pilgrim people,
to discern a future together for your glory and our common good.
Through Christ our Lord.

At a meeting with city pastors Jan. 9, 2012, Bishop Paul Bootkoski launched the second phase of "Renewing the Church in New Brunswick."

The mission is to develop a structure of 3-4 parishes that are vibrant, financially sustainable and ministering to the cultures and needs as they are today.

The public portion of the restructuring begins with information nights on either Jan. 26 or Feb. 2 from 7pm to 8:30pm in the St. Peter School Cafeteria.

A series of meetings will be held through the fall, when the new New Brunswick structure will be announced.

CLICK HERE to read the timeline and bulletin announcement that will be made in all city parishes the weekend of Jan. 14-15.

Renewing the Church in New Brunswick has been a process in place for more than two years. CLICK HERE to read the proposal that all New Brunswick Catholic organizations agreed to Sept. 29, 2010 at a meeting at St. Peter's University Hospital with Bishop Bootkoski.

Our thanks to Sacred Heart Parish reps Natalie Borisovets, Tom McNellis and Nelson Torres, who have been active participants in the proceedings and have represented our parish extraordinary well, as they will continue to do so during this decisive phase.

They are part of a Deanery Council to implement the agreement, and began their bi-monthly meetings in November 2010. They are meeting through early 2012 to complete this phase of the project.

If you would like to follow the progress of the Council, CLICK HERE for the latest minutes. Please keep the success of this city-wide project in your prayer petitions, especially as we move to restructure New Brunswick area parishes to maximize resources and vitality.

Support Hungarian Festival this Saturday, June 1

Upcoming Meetings

Parish Unification Updates

On April 17, several staff members attended a diocesan training on the parish unification process.  The following news comes from this training:

·         As of May 1, Msgr. Joseph Kerrigan is named the administrator for Sacred Heart, St. Ladislaus, and St. Joseph parishes.

·         We’ve been asked to form a provisional Pastoral Council, consisting of a few members from each parish.

·         On May 6, at 7pm in the Sacred Heart Parish Hall, all parishioners are invited to a meeting to begin the process of naming the new parish. Artist Pavol Olsavsky will lead us through a discussion. Our top three choices must be sent to the Bishop by June 15 for his final decision.

All parishioners are invited to a series of town hall meetings to share information and answer questions about the parish unification process. These will take place: Saturday May 11 at 5:45pm, Sacred Heart; Sunday May 12 at 10:45, Sacred Heart; Monday May 13 at 7pm, St. Joseph; Tuesday May 14 at 7pm, St. Ladislaus. Parishioners can attend at any or all locations, no matter your current affiliation.

Reflection: First Meeting

Sharing stories is not merely an exchange of words; it is an exchange of fears and grief; choices and opportunities; hopes and values. It is how we come to know one another. It is an exercise in reaching out to another person's heart from our own, and to show someone that we want to build a relationship built on respect and trust.

When we look to the Gospels, we see see that Jesus used storytelling as a principle means of his teaching, of building a faith tradition. Story telling is a key part of how we have come to learn about God's love for us, and the way in which he expects us to love our brothers and sisters. It seemed fitting, then, that we should use storytelling in the formation of our new faith community.

Our first meeting as a new parish community took place on January 22. About 30 of us total came together, each representing one of the three parishes, Catholic Charities, or the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. We decided to share our stories as a group so that we could begin building a community based on shared respect for one another and our unique histories, and on shared hopes and values.

For the first half of the meeting, we all met as one large group. We were welcomed by the parish representatives by reciting a song as a group as an icebreaker, and then one of the pastors led us in an opening prayer. One of the representatives shared her story with the group as a model, and then another representative discussed how the story showed pain, opportunities, choices, and hopes.

For the second half of the evening, we broke into small groups of two to six people. Everyone was asked to form a group by finding people whom they did not know from other parishes or organizations. Then in these small groups, we shared our stories with our new friends.

Although we came from different three different parishes, we all found common ground based on our experiences and values as Catholics. One group said that, although they had never met before that evening and came from different organizations, they found through talking that they shared a connection: they both expressed their faith through service to the poor.

Another attendee noted that the restructure process was like an arranged marriage; although we are strangers that did not necessarily choose to come together, by spending time getting to know one another, we have been pleasantly surprised by how much we have in common and how well we actually fit together.

A final comment compared the evening to the earlier parish restructure meetings over the last two years; while those meetings focused on logistics, numbers, and data, this meeting focused on words, stories, and connections between and among people. He noted that faith is personal, and so a process of restructure and unification also needs to be personal.

As these comments suggest, sharing stories allowed to us think about the parish restructure in a totally different way. Instead of seeing this process as a time to draw lines in the sand, or claim territory, or point out differences, we could choose to reach across those constructed boundaries, look for the values that we share, and come together to create a new space for a renewed community filled with faith and hope.

A New Beginning

In January 2014, Sacred Heart, Saint Ladislaus, and St. Joseph's parishes of New Brunswick will join together, along with Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen and the local society of St. Vincent de Paul to form a new, unified parish family.

It is our hope that the new parish culture will celebrate the many heritages and cultural traditions of its parishioners, and also look toward ways to better serve the low-income community of which the parish is located.

In anticipation of the parish restructure, members from each parish and organization have begun to come together in a series of community building meetings. These meetings will continue weekly through the Lenten season, with the hope that we will strengthen our relationships with each other, our larger community, and with our faith.

We have started this blog as a space to reflect on the lessons we learn from these meetings and on the parish unification process as a whole; by creating this space, we will share our reflections, lessons learned, and hopes with all of the members of our new parish community.