Prayer opportunities at your parish?

[ojmom]

Our parish has formed a stewardship committee to look for ways to increase stewardship and stewardship opportunities in our parish. I’m on the Prayer sub-committee. We’re looking for ideas! Right now we have an 8:45am Communion Service on Monday mornings, Mass at 8:45am Tues-Fri.(Rosary before) and weekend liturgies. We have Rosary once/week in the evening only during the months of May & October. We sometimes have a special adult ed class, and have tried to start a First Saturday devotion. Attendance is sparse at most of these opportunites though we are a fairly large, suburban parish (over 1000 families). We also have a Lenten Mission. We have one priest and 3 deacons assigned to our parish. We also offer Christ Renews His Parish retreats twice/year. We just began Adoration once/month and attendance actually seems to be pretty good for this.

I’m interested in hearing what opportunities there are at your parishes - especially if they’ve lead to significant changes in the prayer life of your parish. Thanks!

 

[LilyM]

Our parish has formed a stewardship committee to look for ways to increase stewardship and stewardship opportunities in our parish. I’m on the Prayer sub-committee. We’re looking for ideas! Right now we have an 8:45am Communion Service on Monday mornings, Mass at 8:45am Tues-Fri.(Rosary before) and weekend liturgies. We have Rosary once/week in the evening only during the months of May & October. We sometimes have a special adult ed class, and have tried to start a First Saturday devotion. Attendance is sparse at most of these opportunites though we are a fairly large, suburban parish (over 1000 families). We also have a Lenten Mission. We have one priest and 3 deacons assigned to our parish. We also offer Christ Renews His Parish retreats twice/year. We just began Adoration once/month and attendance actually seems to be pretty good for this.

I’m interested in hearing what opportunities there are at your parishes - especially if they’ve lead to significant changes in the prayer life of your parish. Thanks!

I don’t know if this is negotiable, but I’m thinking if you have a lot of younger families and working people in your neighbourhood then 8.45 am is a little late of a Mass time for most of them. Perhaps an earlier daily Mass/communion service might bring in more people?

 

[Victorious]

One of our local parishes has a Mass at 07:00, and it’s always packed. Fortunately, it’s celebrated every morning by a retired priest who is quite orthodox, and who must really love the Mass to get up that early and celebrate it every day, despite his obviously poor health.

If you get a really early Mass started, the best part about it (besides it will fit in better with people’s work schedules) is that probably only a really orthodox priest who loves the Mass will want to celebrate it.

 

[ojmom]

I agree that I would love to see either an earlier Mass time or maybe one at Noon or in the evening. However, I forgot to mention that there is a K-8 school with our parish. The 8:45 time allows a classroom to attend Mass once every two weeks during the school year. Otherwise, it is definately mostly retired people who attend. We do have a retired priest who helps out on weekends, but I don’t know if he’s available during the week.