Signs Of A Healthy Parish

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LilyM said:
Secondly daily, or if not daily at least on Sunday, morning and evening prayer (Matins or Lauds + Vespers).
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Thats very sad. When I’m looking for a lively orthodox parish I usually take the fact that they have parishioners dedicated enough to come to morning and evening prayer as a sign of a good spiritual community and the fact that the prayer is the prayer of the Church and not some newer construct usually speaks volumes to me about its orthodoxy.

I guess some things are different between the UK and America. Over here I’d see an unorthodox parish as one that has either or both of these events: A Taize service (protestant ideas tend to creep in through them eventually) or a ‘low’ Mass on Sunday (no incense, no choir etc.)
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KingAlfred said:
I belonged to a good one, when suddenly the pastor disappeared and was replaced by an old, retired bishop, who gave some of the worst and longest sermons I’ve ever endured. He brought a small stack of books with him to Mass to read from during his sermons, and completely ignored the Mass schedule. Before each part of Mass, he’d stop everything and explain its historical origins. He turned Mass into an agonizing, two-hour tutorial. I *left *the parish. Now I’m ‘hopping’ around.
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Awesome, sounds like my kind of church, jk. Not all priests are perfect, but we should go to our community church. We are there to add our own flavor. Sounds like your church was lacking some flavor because certain people were leaving, hint, hint?
 
Seamus_L said:
Mass attendance alone doesn’t make a parish spiritually healthy. A few miles from my house is a large modern Catholic Church that draws over 2000 people on Sunday. They have Teen Groups, Singles Groups, Seniors Groups etc. Unfortunately, they do not offer Eucharistic Adoration, there is no group that regularly recites the Rosary, and probably less than 15 people go to confession a week, because it’s just offered for a short time on Saturday.
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Wow, the harvest sounds huge there, get to work! I mean you should get involved if you feel God is calling you…😉
 
I think a healthy parish is one that is growing.
One way to grow is of course by the conversion of a member’s spouse. Another way is if the parish has a strong evangelical out reach to the community and encourage people to explore the Catholic Faith.

Trick
 
LilyM said:
Compared to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass it is 🤷

The two churches I know that have this are, sadly, among the most liberal I’ve ever known. Strong maybe (depending on your definition) but hardly orthodox.
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The Mass isn’t a devotion, it is THE holy sacrifice. 🙂
 
I would add that a healthy parish should have a Catholic school attached to it. CCD just hasn’t done itl, nor has RICA. One only has to look at this forum to know that. We must be looking ahead to the next generation of Catholics & try to insure that they know more about their faith… it’s history, it’s Saints (particularly St. Thomas Aquinas…since his Summa has so much to do with Church teachings), it’s councils & encyclicals, etc.
 
Trick said:
I think a healthy parish is one that is growing.
One way to grow is of course by the conversion of a member’s spouse. Another way is if the parish has a strong evangelical out reach to the community and encourage people to explore the Catholic Faith.

Trick
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I’d like to see parishes “grow” more prayerful, more faithful, more knowledgeable, & first & foremost, priests & members grow more in their search for personal holiness (myself included)…before it grows in size.

Sometimes it seems that those who converted to Catholicism were sort of manipulated into joining a Church that calls itself Catholic, but isn’t.
 
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