“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Matthew 25:31-40

In 2015, the Australian Catholic bishops Pastoral Research Office released Building Stronger Parishes.[1] This research showed that there are eight measures of parish life that can be used to assess the vitality of a Catholic parish. At least two of these measures relate to a parish’s ability to be a welcoming community:

  • The parish welcomes inclusion and hospitality and encourages parishioners to share their gifts.

“Vital parishes reach out to all their members, taking particular care to welcome visitors and newcomers into the parish and to help them feel at home. They find ways to include them in parish activities. People are greeted on arrival at Mass and invited in. Parish leaders, staff members and parishioners are welcoming to newcomers and visitors and have a genuine caring attitude towards one another. The parish encourages parishioners to share their skills and talents. It empowers and supports them in their parish work. It encourages and promote an attitude of stewardship as a way of life.”[2]

  • The parish nurtures spiritual fellowship and parishioners experience a strong sense of belonging.

“All parishioners are called to live in community and fellowship with one another. A vital parish works to build up community by creating opportunities to nurture and deepen relationships at various levels within a parish between parishioners and their leaders and among parishioners themselves. It does the same with outside groups to link the parish as community to other communities. Parishioners experience a strong sense of belonging through these activities and they become aware of their special calling of not only belonging to the Church, but of ‘being the Church’ in the world.”[3]

A sense of being welcomed and of belonging is a natural desire of the human heart. It takes effort, commitment and planning to ensure that each person– including those who aren’t always part of the worshipping community – feels welcomed and that they truly belong.

As Pope Francis calls the universal Church to be a “synodal” Church[4] – a people who walk together on life’s journey – we must ensure our communities are places of welcome. If our hearts and minds are attuned to the idea of synodality, then it should transpire that our missionary endeavours – our strategies and planning – will also be synodal in nature. 

If you would like to explore further the topic of being a welcoming community, we invite you to consider the following resources.

Resources and further reading

 

[1] This office is now known as the National Centre for Pastoral Research. Building Stronger Parishes, (T. Dantis, 2015) is available here, with associated reports available from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

[2] Ibid. p. 8.

[3] Ibid. p. 8.

[4] Synodality means “walking together”. To be synodal means the baptised journey together, discerning what the Holy Spirit asks of each one of us by listening deeply to the “joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties” of our fellow travellers.