In a gathering of faith and community, 500 Catholics packed the Liverpool Catholic Club for Sydney Archdiocese’s second Parish Renewal Conference, united in their quest to deepen their connection with the Holy Spirit. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
With discussions, workshops and testimonies, the conference aimed to equip participants gathered from across all Sydney dioceses and New South Wales and even as far as New Zealand with the tools necessary to transform their parishes into vibrant hubs of faith and service.
“For such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) was the theme of the day and it was this theme Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP used in his welcome, to challenge those in attendance to “rise to the occasion” in renewing their parishes.
“Creating communities of the faithful requires concerted effort by all, if parishes are to be powerhouses of evangelisation,” he said
But he saw great hope in the numbers in attendance and in “the new evangelisation” in Sydney – the throngs attending the recent Walk with Christ procession, the new youthful faithful ready to lead renewal, the rising tide of faithful ethnic communities and the “oversubscribed” events of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation, as they enacted the archdiocese’s Go Make Disciples mission plan.
“If God is on our side, who is against us?” the archbishop asked.
He noted that with more than two million lives in the archdiocese, there existed “two million potential saints.” He challenged parishes “to identify these new saints,” and that today’s conference will help “workshop these opportunities.”
FULL STORY
Parish Renewal Conference challenges 500 to become leaders ‘for such a time as this’ (By Darren Ally, The Catholic Weekly)
