Dear Friends,

As we begin our Lenten journey, we are also preparing to begin a new phase in our journey in Partners in the Gospel. For many of us, our efforts of re-envisioning and restructuring through this archdiocesan-wide planning process has perhaps taken a back seat in our consciousness in recent months. It is time for us to re-engage this process and continue our journey of bringing our three parishes of Christ Our Hope, Immaculate Conception and St. James Cathedral into one new parish.

If you recall, last year we began this process by exploring who we are as individual parishes, and identifying our gifts and challenges. We conducted listening sessions that helped me to hear directly from you what you think those gifts and challenges are. This next phase of our process invites us to explore “Who is God Calling us to Become?”

Through the work of our Parish Family Leadership Team (made up of staff from each of our three parishes) and our Parish Family Vision Council (think of this as a pastoral council with representatives from all three parishes) we have developed a process to conduct community conversations around this question of who God is calling us to become as one parish.

An important starting point for these community conversations is to ground ourselves in our current reality. This report that describes our gifts and challenges, a snapshot of our ministries, demographic information about our three parishes, and the state of the buildings on each of our three campuses. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with this information as it provides important context for us to create a vision for the future.

The work we are undertaking together is important and I encourage you to be engaged. These three parishes are not mine. These three parishes are the responsibility of all of us. The vision we will create together through prayerful and discerning conversations will be enriched and strengthened by the participation of each one of us. Please make joining in one of these community conversations a priority in the coming weeks.

There are many opportunities for you to participate and you should feel free to attend the one that best fits your schedule, no matter the location. Here is the schedule for our gatherings:

• Thursday, February 26 at 2:00pm Zoom (RSVP to Maria Laughlin, mlaughlin@stjames-cathedral.org )
• Thursday, February 26 at 6:30pm, Holy Names Room, Cathedral
• Sunday, March 1 at 10:15am (after 9:00am Mass), Christ Our Hope
• Sunday March 1 at 12:00pm (after 11:00am Mass), Immaculate Conception
• Thursday, March 5 at 6:30pm Zoom (RSVP to Deanna Tighe, dtighe@christourhopeseattle.org )
• Sunday, March 8 at 6:15pm (after 5:00pm Mass) in Spanish, Christ Our Hope
• Sunday, March 15 at 10:15am (after 9:00am Mass), Christ Our Hope
• Monday, March 16 at 6:30pm, Holy Names Room, Cathedral
• Thursday, March 26 at 2:00pm Zoom (RSVP to Maria Laughlin, mlaughlin@stjames-cathedral.org )

When we gather, we are going to address the following three questions.
I encourage you to give them some prayerful consideration in preparation for attending one of the sessions:

• What did you take away from the “Current Reality” report? What troubled, surprised, or encouraged you?
• What new groups of people are we being called to reach out to? Who have we not been serving?
• What ministries and/or programs do we want to enhance, or to begin, to fulfill our vision of who God is calling us to become? What existing ministries may God be calling us to reconsider or leave behind?

My friends, this process of entering into dialogue with each other and with the Holy Spirit will enable our community of faith to be more effective at sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. As we continue on the path of becoming one parish, our common baptism calls all of us to be co-responsible for shaping this vision under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

May we all enter into these conversations intentionally and prayerfully. We know that if we do our part, God will always be present to us, guiding us along the way.

May God Bless you and these efforts!
 
 
Father Gary Lazzeroni
Pastor