Our Vision

Parish Vision Web

After a period of discernment, the Parish Pastoral Council and I are inviting all the members of our parish to focus on 7 key goals in 2023:

  • Goal 1: weekend experience ... Mindful that “Among the many activities of a parish, none is as vital or as community-forming as the Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day”, this focus area is about continuing to foster a ‘welcome culture’ in our parish and renewing our weekend and weekday celebrations of the Mass and the Sacraments, including expanding opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration and other devotions.
  • Goal 2: Alpha … While our parish has had the opportunity to run Alpha (that provides an experience of hospitality and community life, and an opportunity to explore life and the Christian faith) we will be re-launching Alpha and inviting those who haven’t had a chance to experience Alpha to do so, and in turn then invite others to participate.
  • Goal 3: opportunities to re-connect with each other … this includes an inaugural ‘Parish EASTER SHOW’ event on Palm Sunday 2023, along with other community events throughout the year to bring us together and to celebrate the variety of cultures that are represented in our parish family.
  • Goal 4: opportunities for adult faith formation … founded on OUR VISION that calls us to ‘nourish our faith’ we will be providing and promoting meaningful and accessible opportunities to actively grow and develop our Catholic faith through spiritual formation experiences, quality instruction and guidance and a supportive environment for the nourishment of our relationship with Christ.
  • Goal 5: creating and fostering opportunities to connect with engaged and newly married couples, our youth (primary/high school), young adults (18-35yrs), families who have presented their children for baptism, along with families whose children attend Catholic and state schools. This goal also includes a renewal of our Men’s Ministry and starting opportunities for ministry to Women, and the relaunch of ‘MacKillop Families’ and the founding of a ‘Community Garden’ in the backyard of our Southern Mass Centre at Oran Park.
  • Goal 6: renewing ministry pipelines: i.e. the process for people to get involved in a parish ministry – offering formation for new and existing parish ministries, as well as holding leadership summits & liturgical ministry summits, and wider ‘Parish Assemblies’. We also will be looking at ways to promote a ‘culture of vocations’ including the vocation of the Permanent Diaconate.
  • Goal 7: creating opportunities to reach out to others ... responding to Mary MacKillop’s challenge “Never see a need without doing something about it” and OUR VISION that calls us to respond to the needs of our neighbours, we will be re-launching ‘Do Something Sunday’ and other initiatives and groups that reach out to others, including seeking new members for our ‘Parish Pastoral Care Team’, and raising awareness and education for the ‘Uluru Statement of the Heart’ and Pope Francis’ ecological vision as articulated in ‘Laudato Si’.

Let us pray that founded on OUR PURPOSE as a parish (to form disciples who joyfully live out the mission of Jesus Christ) we will strive to remain faithful to OUR VISION (that calls us to embrace, serve, nourish, and respond).

Fr David Catterall MTh | Parish Priest

A copy of our 2021 NCLS (National Church Life Survey) results can be found HERE.