MERGED: What's going right?/Positive experiences

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My parish offers Eucharistic Adoration for a minimum of five hours every single day (obviously, not including Good Friday and Holy Saturday. There are a minimum of three Masses a day, all week. Confession is available for an hour and a half Monday through Friday and two hours on Saturday. Two separate Novenas are ongoing weekly. Workshops on spirituality and theology are held several times a year, and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola are given annually (19th Annotation) in group format for the laity.

Any time I encounter an inactive Catholic who is considering returning to the active practice of the faith, I refer them to this particular parish. I consider it one of the best-kept secrets of my diocese, and I’m getting the word about it out!
 
Let’s see, we began weekly Eucharistic Adoration from 9:30 to 7:30 last month, we’ve had two or three baptisms each month for the past few months (possibly more at the Masses I don’t usually attend), and we had half a dozen children attend Altar Server training earlier this week.

Our KoC council and other parish groups have also done great work in our parish social ministry. We raised money for a new ultrasound machine last month and fed over 100 people lunch last Saturday.

Ours is one of the smallest parishes in the county, and has only one priest with no deacons, but the laity has really been working very hard to help our pastor offer more to the community.
 
My college has 3 Masses on Sundays and two weekday Masses, all well attended, confession once a week, adoration every weekday morning and during confession time. We staff all our Sunday Masses ourselves, with 2 lectors and 3 EMs =D Also, we have 4 amazing FOCUS missionaries (I can’t say enough good things about FOCUS!)
All this at a tech school, where my biggest worry before attending was if I’d be able to find anyone whatsoever who shares my faith. Oh boy did I find a whole amazing community!
 
My official parish has Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.
My secondary parish offers the Latin Mass.
A former parish of mine has good new priests so I attend Mass there sometimes.

Much to be thankful for.
👍
 
Our pastor’s homilies are great, he’s an excellent teacher and man of faith.

The parishoners are very kind.
 
Oh yeah, and we have perpetual Adoration too!

I want to know more about some of these awesome parishes! I think everyone should feel free to include your parish name/website/photos if they want to! After all, these are nice things we are saying!

There’s an old “tell me about your parish” thread that was kind of like this, but it hasn’t been updated in about 3 years.

Here’s mine: staoptw.org/

and a photo- ecphotoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/0007.jpg

I think mine is one of the prettier modern parishes-built in 2000.
 
Brendan said:
Two great priests
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… in residence, that is… we have even MORE great priests, if you consider those who serve on a regular basis, like Fr. Ikanga (a spectacular preacher), Fr. Luedtke and Fr. Gattari.

But yeah, great parish. Our pastor was the only one in the city (out of, what, 8 English-speaking parishes) who called me back when I was a Protestant with loads of questions (and even more misconceptions) about Catholicism.

Our kids have a fantastic, solidly orthodox Catechism program.
We offer tons of activities for homeschooling families.
The sacrament of reconciliation is made available 30 minutes prior to each Holy Mass throughout the week, plus 2 hours on Saturday mornings (which adds up to 25 separate opportunities, amounting to 14 hours each week)
And our pastor even lets a schlub like me lead an apologetics class!
 
I had a great experience recently with my parish Priest that I would like to share with everyone. My husband and I had a meeting with the Priest to discuss being married outside of the church many years ago. I was extremely nervous over what he would recommend to get our marriage convalidated within the church and/or if he would even be willing to work with us on this issue.

I am happy to say that I have never met such a kind and understanding Priest! After just a few minutes, he had me very comfortable discussing the issues with him. He was reassuring over what we needed to do to get our marriage recognized in the church. With all the negative publicity of the Catholic Church, i just wanted to say how blessed we are to have Priests that dedicate their lives to the Church and create such a sincere need to help those that are trying to live our faith to the fullest(but need a little extra help now and then:)
 
Thank you for sharing your positive experience. 🙂
I thank God that you have received the grace to return to full communion with the Church, and rejoice with you for the happiness and peace that you are no enjoying
 
teach30 said:
I had a great experience recently with my parish Priest that I would like to share with everyone. My husband and I had a meeting with the Priest to discuss being married outside of the church many years ago. I was extremely nervous over what he would recommend to get our marriage convalidated within the church and/or if he would even be willing to work with us on this issue.

I am happy to say that I have never met such a kind and understanding Priest! After just a few minutes, he had me very comfortable discussing the issues with him. He was reassuring over what we needed to do to get our marriage recognized in the church. With all the negative publicity of the Catholic Church, i just wanted to say how blessed we are to have Priests that dedicate their lives to the Church and create such a sincere need to help those that are trying to live our faith to the fullest(but need a little extra help now and then:)
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👍

We need more priests like that!
 
djrakowski said:
… in residence, that is… we have even MORE great priests, if you consider those who serve on a regular basis, like Fr. Ikanga (a spectacular preacher), Fr. Luedtke and Fr. Gattari.
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Thanks for the reminder. Yes Fr. Ikanga is a FANTASTIC speaker 👍

And that also reminded me about our sister parish in Tanzania ( our parish conducted a major capital campaign to fund the construction of a new parish in a villiage in Tanzania, with a school, rectory, convent and medical dispensary ). 36 of our teens went over in 2010 to help construct it, what a trip that was :cool: Another group is going over this summer to help with more projects (and spend some great time with our sister parish)
And our pastor even lets a schlub like me lead an apologetics class!
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One of his better decisions 👍
 
Thank you for sharing!
Might I suggest that in addition to posting here, you drop a note to the priest & the priest’s immediate supervisor (usually the Pastor, if it is the Pastor, send it to the Bishop).

Far too often it is only complaints that one hears. It seems like anyone & everyone will complain, but no one ever wants to praise. As a supervisor, I am thrilled when I get comments about how wonderful my staff is. It is a reflection of their integrity & hard work and of my leadership & guidance. Sometimes it is nice to have it recognized.😃
 
We have a very vibrant parish. We have 1 pastor, 2 associate pastors, 1 deacon, 1 seminarian and one religious. We also have a f-t youth minister.

The parish is a hub of activity every night of the week. We have 6 morning weekday masses, 2 weekday evening masses, 1 Saturday evening and 4 Sunday masses.

There is a youth group, young adult, catholic girls group. Sunday children’s liturgy. CWL, KofC.

This is all I can think of …lol.

We have 2 priests that are SO excellent, one is our associate pastor. I’m dreading when he moves on to his own parish, as he’ll be incredibly missed. He is extremely well spoken, I found him intimidating initially, but seeing him interact with the youth, his compassion, understanding and willingness to get on their level to form a relationship is incredible. I have worked with him as well, and he is a great counselor, kind, and encouraging. The other is a huge asset. He speaks plainly, he doesn’t pull his ‘punches’ but everyone responds positively to him. He has done a lot of good work in his time at the parish, another we’ll be sad to see move on.

I’m still pretty new to the parish, and have only started scraping the surface of all that is offered to us. I’m exploring more!
 
Brendan said:
And that also reminded me about our sister parish in Tanzania ( our parish conducted a major capital campaign to fund the construction of a new parish in a villiage in Tanzania, with a school, rectory, convent and medical dispensary ). 36 of our teens went over in 2010 to help construct it, what a trip that was :cool: Another group is going over this summer to help with more projects (and spend some great time with our sister parish)
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Our partnership with Bp. Minde and the folks in the Diocese of Kahama is one of the most impressive missionary efforts I’ve ever seen!
Brendan said:
One of his better decisions 👍
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😊
 
djrakowski said:
Our partnership with Bp. Minde and the folks in the Diocese of Kahama is one of the most impressive missionary efforts I’ve ever seen!
😊
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Which parish are you at, just wondering? I am also from Michigan too.
The parish I’ve been going to has been offering adoration of the Blessed Sacrament once a week for 2 hours, different days & times each time so that people on various schedules can come by and adore/pray. Also during Lent, the Lenten Wednesday evenings for an hour - private confessions were available plus each Saturday morning instead of 2 Saturdays a month for confession.

I go to Bible Study/Sharing at my mother’s parish as it is at a time that fits my schedule best, plus my aunt is the leader of it too.

If only my diocese offered the TLM / EF Mass, I would go to that more often too.
 
djrakowski said:
Ss. Cyril & Methodius in Sterling Heights. Check us out if you’re in the area!
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I went there last summer for an Extraordinary Form Mass followed by a Fatima Procession & saying of the Rosary. I live a few hours away though. I will have to come back when I have a chance. Beautiful building too, I pointed it out to an out of state friend when passing by it on a Friday afternoon on my way north.
 
I just wanted to say that I am so thankful to have the option to go to daily Mass. So many parts of the world people are fortunate to receive Eucharist once a week! This morning I couldn’t make 7:00 or 12:00, but I made 6:00.

How blessed we are!
 
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