Mission Matters: Feb. 7, 2017

This week’s “Parish Table Talk”: An evangelizing parish office; Catholic Men’s Fellowship; USCCB action alerts; GIVEN retreat; March For Life interviews; Registration for combined rite; Transitions; plus this Thursday’s blog post.

Watch for this Thursday’s post

The Choice Before Us: Safety or Health, by John Romanowsky, Executive Director of the Department of Evangelization

Since last week’s Mission Matters was not delivered to emails, we repeat some announcements:

•  The Parish Office:  Pat Lencioni, co-founder of Amazing Parish, shares some insights on making the parish office a place of evangelization.  The atmosphere, intentionality and physical space all contribute to modeling what we are encouraging our parishioners to embrace.  What changes may help your office to be more evangelizing?

•  “Rise Up, O Men of God”: The Catholic Men’s Fellowship is March 25, 2017. Spread the word and begin to organize a group from your parish. Guest speakers this year are Scott Hahn, Paul Shelton and Alex Zunca.

•  USCCB Action Alerts:  The USCCB Committee on Migration shared this action alert for those who would like to take action and contact their representatives concerning immigration.  The Committee for Religious Liberty sent out an alert calling for action to respect religious liberty.

•  GIVEN Retreat March 4th:  There will be a GIVEN retreat for couples on March 4th at St. Joseph Cockeysville.  Consider announcing this in your bulletin if Cockeysville is a convenient location for your parishioners.  Couples can register at bemissionarydisciples.org/given

•  Cause for Rejoicing:  The international deaf community is blessed with the recent ordination of new priest who is deaf. His conversion story and path to the priesthood is a beautiful example of the accompaniment from several missionary discipleship in his journey.

•   March for Life 2017: We want to thank all of the pilgrims who came from around the Archdiocese of Baltimore to the March for Life last week. This is truly a historic moment and a day of great hope. We hope that you have been encouraged to keep working for and living out the Gospel of Life. Because of the significance of this March, the news media covered some stories from the Baltimore area. Fr. Carlos Osorio, from St. Joseph, Cockeysville, shared his personal story on WBAL. A local WJZ-TV reporter caught up with Natasha Wilson and Fr. James Boric during the March. Thank you to all who joined us to stand for the vulnerable of our society!

•   Reminder to Parish Coordinators of RCIA: Registration for the Combined Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion is currently open.  You may register online at:  http://www.archbalt.org/evangelization/worship/2017-reg.cfm . Please contact Julie Grace Males at julie.males@archbalt.org (or call 410-547-5403) for more information.

Transitions

Lia Salinas, Director of Hispanic Ministry

Lia Salinas has been involved in Catholic ministry for over fifteen years, working for the Archdiocese of Miami, Arlington Diocese, and most recently at the Archdiocese of Washington serving as Coordinator of Course Promotion and Hispanic Catechesis. She is currently pursuing her degree in Theology. Lia was born in El Salvador and was raised in Miami. She is married and has two children. Her favorite Scripture passage is Matthew 5:1-12 (The Beatitudes) and her favorite saint is St. Teresa of Ávila. On her spare time, Lia enjoys cooking and traveling with her family.

Monica Greene, Office Manager, Department of Evangelization

Monica Green has joined us as Office Manager and comes with over 15 years of experience, most recently with the YWCA-NCA and the University of the District of Columbia, both in Washington, DC, where she also received her Master’s in Public Administration. Monica was born and raised in Washington, DC.  She is married with two daughters. During her spare time she likes to bake, and plan all kinds of social events and parties.

Questions? Feedback? Please leave a comment below.