Anyone prepare your Church's weekly bulletin?

[bjj]

What resources do you use? I’m looking for more info to put in our bulletin. Something enlightening, not informational.

 

[Leopard]

I’ve always considered the purpose of the bulletin to be informational, although this may certainly include information about topics and events one might consider enlightening.

 

[blossom02]

I work on the parish bulletin and that is always a challenge. we use lpi at our parish and they provide alot of things. We have also started taking pictures of events and of the different groups in the parish to get the interest of the readers. It also helps to make everyone feel more apart of the parish family.

I’m also open to any good ideas you may have.

It is a weekly battle.

 

[Stolen_Rutters]

Are you allowed to use old books, say 1st to 4th century translations?

Ok, seriously, to find something inspirational, try reading through the Catechism and see if anything there jumps out at you. I have always been inspired by the truth, or by people seeking truth.

Well, on second thought, maybe that’s a bad idea. I’m an engineer, so I live by the motto that learning is inspirational, even though I know other people only see stuff like the Catechism as informational.

 

[Joannm]

I just started a question answer column. So far no one has sent in questions so I make up my own. The one this week is “What are the big books they use at Mass called?” It may sound simple but many people do not know what they are called. I also had things like, “why do we bless ourselves with holy water when we enter the church?” I will also write a column seasonally about some aspect of the season. Nothing long, maybe a paragraph or two. People don’t want to read long things in the bulletin.

 

[Phemie]

I just started a question answer column. So far no one has sent in questions so I make up my own. The one this week is “What are the big books they use at Mass called?” It may sound simple but many people do not know what they are called. I also had things like, “why do we bless ourselves with holy water when we enter the church?” I will also write a column seasonally about some aspect of the season. Nothing long, maybe a paragraph or two. People don’t want to read long things in the bulletin.

I do the bulletin in my parish and it’s always a struggle to find stuff, particularly at this time of year when there is little going on in the parish. These past two weeks have seen me put the liturgical calendar for the year on the back page.

I did start putting information about the sacraments last year. A few weeks on baptism, a few weeks on marriage. All from the Catechism and the Rites.

The most gratifying moment I had all year was when, after putting the two segments on baptism, one focusing on godparents and the other on how we celebrate baptism in our parish, a man came to the door with his 5 year old son and asked to have him baptized.

This family had presented this child for baptism when he was an infant and become very upset when they were told that one godparent had to be Catholic. It came to light at that time that with their first child the priest had never bothered to ask about the sponsors’ religion and neither was Catholic. They had left the interview upset and never came back for the sacrament. OTOH, they were at Mass with both children almost every week.

Although he never said so, I thought it was more than coincidental that after explaining in the bulletin why a godparent needs to be a Catholic who has received the 3 sacraments of initiation this man opted to then represent his son for baptism.

My columns on marriage, though, upset a lot of people and the pastor made it seem as though I was only presenting a ‘new’ thing when in fact I’d only written what has been in the rite for over 25 years. Perish the thought that he should tell couples what the Church really expects during a wedding – he who sets up the seating of the wedding party not in a way conducive to the Liturgy but for the convenience of the photographers.

But, I digress…

I think I may put something in about the new translation of the Roman Missal which is expected sometime next year. Nothing specific because we don’t have any specifics as yet, but just an informational note about the fact that the new Missal is being translated.

 

[Becky42]

hi

i sometimes prepare the ‘youth section’ of our parish weekly bulletin and we often put in column about commonly asked questions about catholocism. We dont ask people for the questions but they know they can ask them if they wish and have it put in, but its amazing how much of the what would seem to be simple things of the catholic faith are not understood by the majority of the congregation, especially the youth, who more than ever need motivation and understanding to keep them interested in their faith.

Stuff like, why do we bless ourselves with holy water when we enter the church, which do we genuflect (sorry i cant spell! ) and stuff about church teachings that can be found in the catechism but unfortunately most people dont read theirs or even own one.

Becky