Parish Liturgy

A parish should be ‘a ministering community and a community of ministers.’

                                                      Gerard Egan in  The Parish in Community and Ministry.
 

Sunday after Sunday, we gather together to celebrate Mass. Mass or Eucharist is a liturgy. Liturgy is the term given to the public rites of the church, in which we gather together as a community to worship God. Together we celebrate our commitment to God and to one another. Together we praise God. We give thanks for our lives, bringing our joys and our sorrows to our community celebrations of Eucharist. As the bread and wine are offered, so too is the work of our hands, the daily bread of our lives and the cup of celebration.

We come together also as a community to celebrate funerals. We gather as a parish family to support those who are bereaved and to be companions of hope and care in these dark and lonesome moments.

The parish liturgy group works closely with the priest(s) and others involved in our celebration of liturgy. Their role is to enable us to celebrate the Sunday liturgy as well as the different highpoints of our liturgical year – Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. They do this by preparing the liturgy and by assisting each one to play their part in the celebration. 

"Ministry is going on everywhere – in every home, in every relationship – wherever there is an encounter between the need of one person and the giftedness of another. Most ministry is unnamed, inconspicuous, untrumpeted. It would not even think of itself as ‘ministry.’ And yet, whenever and wherever it happens, people are obeying Jesus’ command, ‘you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’ Whenever it happens there is an event of ‘grace.’ As a parish this is what we are and what we are meant to be – a ministering community, a place where ministry is given and received."

                                                                 Donal Harrington in The Welcoming Parish