Precious Blood Parish

A Precious Blood Parish Seen through the Lens of the Precious Blood

by Barry Fischer, C.PP.S.

 

Introduction

            During these days we have heard many insightful and challenging presentations describing the reality of parishes in the United States today, as well as exploring different ways in which we as peoples of the Precious Blood can incarnate our spirituality within the parish structures.  Indeed I cannot express enough how important it is for us to share our charism with the Church!  Charisms are a gift of the Spirit for the good of the community.  And, as indicated in the parable of the Talents in the Gospel, I am convinced that if we do not share our charism, we run the distinct danger of losing it all together!   

What we "do" in our apostolate perhaps is not so very different than what others do, but our gospel motivation and the love with which we carry out our mission, as well as the apostolic community life which supports it, are all injected, transformed, and nourished by a why and a how which comes from THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.

St. Gaspar wrote to D. Giuseppe Ottaviani on January 2, 1836: “Therefore, may devotion to the Divine Blood be our comfort and through it may we be strengthened in our apostolate so that we will work with ever greater fervor wherever we note the greater need among souls.” (Letter # 3037)

Let us listen once again to the words of the Holy Father:  “We may say that the spiritual life, understood as life in Christ or life according to the Spirit, presents itself as a path of increasing faithfulness, on which the consecrated person is guided by the Spirit and configured by him to Christ, in full communion of love and service in the Church.

All these elements, which take shape in the different forms of the consecrated life, give rise to a specific spirituality, that is, a concrete program of relations with God and one’s surroundings, marked by specific spiritual emphases and choices of apostolate, which accentuate and re-present one or another aspect of the one mystery of Christ.  When the Church approves a form of consecrated life or an Institute, she confirms that in its spiritual and apostolic charism are found all the objective requisites for achieving personal and communal perfection according to the Gospel.”  (Vita Consecrata, #93)

As we drink from the well-spring of the spirituality of the Blood, we will not only clarify our own identity as missionary women and men, but will thus be able to contribute to the mission of the local and universal Church, from the our specificity, that is from our own uniqueness.

Making Connections: Our Ongoing Challenge

            Much has been said and written during the past forty years, especially since Vatican Council II, on the spirituality of the Precious Blood.  We have been challenged repeatedly to incarnate our spirituality into our lives.  It challenges us to mission and indicates a path to follow in our everyday lives and ministries.  Many of us, laity and religious alike, have been touched and motivated by these reflections.  Nevertheless, much still has to be done.  The greatest challenge we face today, as I see it, is that of making the necessary connections between the reflections (theory) and our everyday lives (practice).  Until we do this, the Precious Blood will not become the driving force and unifying element in our spiritual life and in our ministries.

            A turning point in my own journey in Precious Blood spirituality came when I first read the Encyclical Letter of John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, his Pastoral Letter on Life, written in 1995.  In this Letter, the Holy Father speaks about the “cry of Abel’s blood” which continues to soak the earth and cry to heaven for an answer.  Later on in his reflections he refers to the Precious Blood as God’s answer to Abel’s spilt blood.  It is the Blood of reconciliation, of redemption, of healing, of covenant.

            Blood is very concrete.  It holds within it both life and death, as we have often reflected.  I began to speak of the “cry of Abel’s blood” (being blood spilt, suggesting many aspects of the culture of death) and the “call of the Precious Blood” (as God’s response in Christ, with all the rich overtones which the Precious Blood means for us).  I soon discovered that this paradigm of “the cry and the call of the Blood”  was a very concrete way of bringing our reflections on spirituality down to earth, connecting easily to our life experiences.  It has become a way for me to focus on our identity and a lens through which I view reality.  And for our purposes here, a way of discovering mission and our contribution to the universal Church as peoples marked by the Blood of Christ. 

            I will attempt now to suggest some concrete paths for parish mission as seen from this perspective.

                                  

What are some characteristics of a Precious Blood Parish?

            I will approach the theme gathering my reflections around three principle axes:  A Precious Blood Parish as a Eucharistic Community; as a Community of Reconciliation; as a Community in Mission.

A Eucharist Community:

A key aspect of the spirituality of the Precious Blood is that of Covenant.  God made a non-people into a people.  The God revealed in Jesus Christ is a God of relationship who invites us into a covenant bond with God and with one another.  Jesus shed his Blood in order to seal this covenant.

As a community of believers inspired and nourished by the Blood of Christ, we are particularly sensitive to “the cry of the blood” which shouts to us from the bloodstained earth.  We hear the cries of those who are excluded from the community or who feel they are excluded.  We hear the cry of loneliness of many of our elderly and sick who feel left out due to their old age or debilitated physical condition.  We hear the cry of the mentally ill who are often shunned and avoided.  We hear the cry of the divorced and separated.  And the cry of those who live different life styles.    And what about our youth?  Often shunned or left out, do we hear their cry for participation?  Are we sensitive to their needs as we celebrate  the Eucharist, as we plan pastoral activities?

Their “cry for belonging” is an expression of Abel’s blood which shouts to us, if we will only listen.

A Parish living under the banner of the Precious Blood discovers in those “cries” a “call to mission.”  The Blood of the Covenant is about “building relationships.”  For us, community is important.  It is a fundamental option and should be indicative of the overall atmosphere, which is breathed in a Precious Blood Parish.  What are some of the concrete expressions of such a Parish?

·         Building Community.  An asserted effort is made to reach out to others to welcome them into community.  A Precious Blood Parish is a welcoming, hospitable one.  A few months ago I received an email from an old friend with whom I had lost contact for over fifteen years.  He told me about his life, bringing me up to date on happenings since we were last together.  Now married with two children, he is living and working in Asia where he is working in finance.  And he is now a Baptist!  I would like to share “why”.  He writes: “Surprisingly, we have ended up in a Baptist Church community in Singapore.  The church community at the International Baptist Church is exceptionally warm and real genuine caring folks.  Certainly beats the three different Catholic parishes we tested: no warmth, very staid, outdated community organization, hierarchical.  But the final straw, which pushed us to look at a variety of other denominations, was the welcome we got at the last church we went to.  After fifteen minutes of waiting in the unattended Church office, the assistant pastor walked in, brushed by me, picked up some paperwork, and brushed by me again on the way out.  Then he stopped as a second thought and asked if I needed help.  I said I was new in town and wanted to sit down and talk about the church community.  His exact response went something like this: ‘new family registration cards are on the back of the door, fill out two sets, make sure the address is spelled clearly so that gift envelops from Sunday can be processed correctly.  Church service times are posted on the far wall.  And the next time you come please park your car on the street so you don’t block Fr. Choo’s car.  See you on Sunday!’  Needless to say, we never got around to filling out the registration forms.  “Welcoming” begins at the secretary’s office or with the ushers at Mass on Sunday.  How can we greet people, welcome them to our weekly communal celebration of God’s loving presence?  People are invited to participate in communities, in different groups, in Bible Study, in outreach programs.  Pastoral agents are constantly searching for ways to “invite” others into communion and participation.  A parish which witnesses to the Blood of Christ will also seek to strengthen family bonds and emphasize good preparation for entering into the marriage covenant.  Within the Parish, small Christian communities are promoted, in which people can relate to one another as a “person”, in which they can share together their deepest spiritual experiences, which give meaning to the exterior practices of their faith.  In these covenant communities, people experience the presence of Christ, discover His Word, and are called to conversion and to mission.

·         An Inclusive Community.  Special effort is made to reach out to the lonely, to the sick and the elderly, to the divorced, and to those living alternative life styles, to the un-churched, or to those who have been alienated from the church for whatever reason.  No one is excluded a-priori.  All are invited with love and compassion to find their place at the Table of Fellowship.

Everyone finds a home.  Once in Santiago de Chile our Parish Council sat down and discussed the question:  “Who are the most excluded in our parish Community? Who are suffering most from loneliness or neglect?”  After analyzing the parish situation, we concluded together that it was the elderly who were often neglected or left out.  We made the decision to reach out to them and to invite them to form a “Club de Ancianos” (Senior Citizens’ Club).  The response was extraordinary.  They came in great numbers and never missed a meeting!  They came to dance, to sing, to pray and reflect, to share a cup of tea together.  They became an integral part of our parish community and were represented on our Parish Council.  Even today, six of those original members are still living and meeting!  During this week we have heard of another such experience in Chile, shared by Fr. Donald Thieman and Sister Edna Hess.

     

·         Respectful of Cultural Diversity.  The Blood of Christ reveals to us God’s Plan for humankind.  We are to reflect the triune God.  We open our arms as Christ did on the Cross to embrace us in our diversity into one family.  In an increasingly culturally diversified society, we actively promote and respect cultural diversity, welcoming it as an enrichment.  Ours are parishes which honor and celebrate diversity.  A good mission statement for us would be one I found in a parish in Portland, Oregon.  There the Community of St. Andrew describes themselves thus:  “A faith community which honors and celebrates diversity.  We welcome and include persons of every color, language, ethnicity, origin, ability, sexual orientation, marital status and life situation.”  May it never happen in our parishes what Mahatma Gandhi experienced in his native India when he approached a catholic church with the inner thought of perhaps becoming a Christian.  He was stopped at the door of the Church and was politely told that this was not “his” Church, and that he had to go to the “other Church” which was for people like him!    As was the case with my friend, Frank, he would never return!  To respect cultural diversity means to make study materials and bulletins available in different languages, to include in the liturgies songs and liturgical expressions, which are representative of the diverse community gathering to celebrate.  Multicultural worship and parish unity events can be ways to honor the diversity and are a good first step.  But  a Precious Blood Parish community must do more than promote evangelization efforts in diverse languages and celebrate patronal feast days for the various national groups, which comprise the parish community.  It is important that the various ethnic groups not only feel “welcomed” but also represented in parish leadership.  In other words, the dominant established parish group must relinquish “control” and recognize that all groups need to participate in communal leadership and decision-making.   We need to move beyond cultural sensitivity to mutual ownership, beyond extending welcome to a sense of belonging, beyond hospitality to homecoming.  A parish that witnesses to the Blood of Christ which breaks down the walls which separate us, calls us to this witness.  All God’s children “belong” to the family and must be recognized and accepted as “equals,” as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

·         A Prayerful Community.  The Community, which celebrates the Eucharist, is aware that to be a “Eucharistic Community” calls us to go beyond the hour that we are actually gathered in Church on any given Sunday.  To be “Eucharistic” means to “break the bread of life and drink from the cup” of our everyday lives.  For those of us hailing from Precious Blood Parishes, we reflect and pray over “the cry of the blood”  and “the call of the Blood,” in our parish councils, in our evaluation meetings, in prayer groups, in planning sessions.  It is reflected on in our homilies and in our catechesis.  As we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we do so “recognizing the Body of Christ” (I Cor. 11:28-29), that is, Christ’s living Body, which continues to be broken and whose Blood continues to be shed.  In the Eucharist the “cup of suffering” unites the different cries of the blood which the parish community has gathered together during the week and they are offered to God.  Then God returns that consecrated Cup to us with the Precious Blood, converting our Cup of Suffering into a Cup of Hope and Promise.  Receiving “communion from the Cup” should be common practice in Precious Blood Parishes.  Drinking from the Cup can be a powerful means for educating ourselves about the social dimension of our faith and for discovering our mission.  The Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a special moment when the Parish Community is invited to “contemplate the face of Christ living and suffering today in our communities, neighborhoods, country, and world.  The Holy Father writes in his Apostolic Letter, Novo millennio ineunte: “If we are really given over to the contemplation of Christ, we should know how to discover him above all in those with whom He himself wished to be identified.” (#49)  A  possible way of achieving this, might be the creation of “centers of listening and of prayer,” in which it is possible to pray “contemplatively” the reality we face.  The content of this contemplative prayer would be: “Where have I experience today ‘the cry of the blood’ in this concrete life experience?”  Then, as the disciples in the Emmaus Story (Luke 24:13-25) the reflection is seen in the light of God’s Word.  In this communal, contemplative prayer, the community gathers strength and new energies to return to mission with another vision and renewed energies.

·         Collaborative Ministry.  As we strive to reflect the covenant bond, we are aware that our mission is one shared by all baptized people.  Working together as priests and religious hand in hand with the laity is one way of expressing our communion and common mission.  In our Parishes the distinct gifts of the members are discovered, encouraged, and called forth for the good of all.  The parish works together through Parish Councils, Committees, and different organizations to further the pastoral plan, each contributing from his/her particular gifts and with the representation of all the parish groups and cultural and ethnic representation.

A community of Reconciliation

      Reconciliation lies at the heart of mission and responds to one of the greatest needs of people today.  We are called to further in our world today, Christ’s dream of a New Creation, as expressed in John’s Gospel: “I pray, loving God, that all might be one, as You and I are one” (17:20).  The Blood of reconciliation destroys the walls which separate us, and sends us to serve as instruments of reconciliation, supporting each movement, each initiative and proposal that furthers dialogue and the meeting of adversaries, insisting always on the respect for the human person, of their dignity, of their conscience, of their convictions and rights (Ephesians 2:13-18; Colossians 1:19-20). Christ came to “reconcile all things to Himself in His Blood.”  A Parish Community, living under the sign of the Blood, and called to witness to it, is a community concerned with promoting reconciliation (=the proper relationships) at all levels of parish life and beyond her boundaries.

·         Centers of Reconciliation.  A welcoming, hospitable community is one in which everyone can feel “safe” to be who they are in mutual love and acceptance.  Our communities are places where people can share their stories, uncover their wounds without fearing that they will be rejected or ridiculed.  They are communities of deep healing and forgiveness in which each person discovers the basic truth about him/herself: that we are all “precious” in God’s eyes and that we, saints and sinners, all bear the image of God and have been redeemed at a great price!   Many people are crying to hear those words spoken to them.  A center of reconciliation is a place where people who have been abused physically or sexually, sons and daughters of broken homes, victims of violence and discrimination, can be welcomed and claim the human worth and dignity of which they had been stripped.

The cultural and ethnic diversity mentioned above is also the cause at times of tensions, misunderstanding, and conflict in multi-ethnic and racially diverse communities.  Often the dominating, established group might “welcome” the newcomers, but more as “guests” than as “people who belong.”  Conflicts can erupt over Mass scheduling (who gets the prime time slots?), who worships in the main Church and who in the crypt chapel?  What about putting the patron saint of the ethnic group in the sanctuary or side alter?  Sometimes we can hear claims such as these, which point to underlying and unresolved issues of prejudice, racism, or power!  “Our ancestors built this Church!”  “We were here first!”  These issues are not avoided but faced in a creative and Christian way in a Precious Blood Parish.

The proposed Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation can be a valuable resource to help parishes establish their Centers of Reconciliation with trained staff to address these important issues.  As their Mission Statement proposes they can be a resource in situations like: “conflict within a parish because of merger or consolidation; the need for reconciliation within a parish staff; or the need for reconciliation between groups within a parish.”  And, I might add that in view of the current crisis in the Church due to sexual scandal abuses, such a Ministry of Reconciliation can also be very instrumental in helping parish communities to face their angers, fears and misgivings, and to face the issues in a Christian way, since their ministry “will be directed to victims, wrongdoers and the community” hoping to create an environment in which reconciliation can be experienced.

Many parishes face the possibility or the surety of having to merge in the near future and are struggling with all the emotions involved in this major shift of how they have lived parish reality up to the present.  Our Reconciliation Team could be of great help to assist the local parishes as they prepare for merger.

Along with these centers of dialogue and sharing, the Parish celebrates the Sacrament of Reconciliation as an important and integral part of her life.  Opportunities are made available for communal penance services and for individuals to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

·         Communities of Solidarity.  A great wall dividing people around the world: nation from nations, races from races, people from people, is economic poverty which often pushes people out of the mainstream of life, carrying them to the brink in a struggle between life and death.  In the many marginalized peoples, men, women and children, around the word we hear a desperate cry.  Their blood shouts from the earth and awaits a response in a world in which peoples are joined together in bonds of justice and solidarity.  “Poverty is a premature death when one is discriminated against in his/her workplace, when the rights of women are violated, or when the right to be different is not respected…We should denounce poverty as a violation of the right to life.” (Words of Gustavo Gutiérrez, a renowned Peruvian theologian).  A parish community under the banner of the Precious Blood lives in solidarity with the poor and marginalized in a war against poverty and all that harms or threatens growth towards the fullness of life.  In a preferential option for the poor, the parish is sensitive to discover the new faces which poverty takes on today: in the elderly, in migrants, in those suffering alcohol or drug addictions, in the imprisoned, in people sick with AIDS, etc.  In our parishes, the Social Gospel is preached and instructed in our schools, in our catechetical programs, in adult formation, in our publications, bulletin boards, in the social media. 

The parish community is involved in works of mercy and in promoting justice.  It has an active Justice and Peace Committee, which helps to educate her people about the relation between faith and daily life, about the demands of living the faith in the workplace, in the political arena, etc.  The U.S. Bishops’ statement “Communities of Salt and Light” (1993) presents reflection on the Social Mission of the Parish and offers a framework for planning and assessing this ministry. 

Different activities can be organized in order to raise the consciousness of the parish community to the situation that the poor are living.  Directors of local food pantries or homeless shelters can be invited to the parish to engage in a dialogue about their ministry and suggest ways in which the parish faith community can do, materially and spiritually, to help.  The children in the Catholic school or in CCD programs can serve at a local food pantry or soup kitchen on a regular basis.  For example, in Chile after the violent coupe that toppled the government of Salvador Allende, there were many families left without the working the presence of father or mother, who disappeared during the crackdown and persecution that followed.  These families faced daily the urgent question of how to feed their children.  Our parish community, after discerning this to be a top priority (that is, the cry of the blood which was most deafening at the time) and commenced to organize a soup kitchen.  The entire parish got involved.  The mothers of the children in need were organized to help cook the hot lunches for about forty children each day, accompanied by women volunteers from the parish community.  The youth and members of the Christian base communities of the parish made door-to-door collections of food and obtained excess or non-sold vegetables from local supermarkets and bones from the butchers.  Youth volunteers helped to serve the meals and to assist the small children each day.  Our soup kitchen was able, thanks to the concerted effort of the parish community, to serve a hot meal each day for almost two years to forty small children and babies.  Nurses from the parish also attended to the health needs of these families and gave courses to the mothers on nutrition and hygiene.  This is just one small example of how a parish can organize in order to serve the needs of the poor at home.

It is important that these activities are realized from evangelical motivations.  It is   good to include prayer and reflection for the volunteers in order to have the proper motivation and the proper attitudes.  A person’s faith can be greatly challenged by such experiences and much can be learned.  There indeed is a mutual exchange of gifts in such situations.

The call to solidarity is at the heart of Pope John Paul II’s leadership.  He has insisted that the test of national leadership is how we reach out to defend and enhance the dignity of the poor and vulnerable, at home and around the world.  He calls us to defense of all human life and care for God’s creation. (U.S. Catholic Bishops)

·         The defense of life.  In a parish inspired and nurtured by the Precious Blood, which is the Blood of Life, our efforts must begin with fundamental reform of the “structures of violence” that bring suffering and death to the poor.  The Catholic community will continue to speak on behalf of increased development assistance, relief from international debt, curbs on the arms trade, and respect for human life and the rights of families.  We will continue to oppose population policies that insist on inclusion of abortion among the methods of family planning.  (U.S. Catholic Bishops)   A parish community inspired by the Blood of Christ is one that raises her voice to defend life wherever it is threatened.  Responding to the Holy Father’s call in Evangelium vitae we become the “voice of the voiceless” so as to make the cry of Abel’s spilt blood heard, calling all to respond in justice and solidarity. The recent Bishop’s Document “Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities: A Campaign in Support of Life” (2001) offers many practical suggestions than can be implemented in the parishes.

A community in Mission:

Our identity and our mission are centered in the cry of the blood and in our response to it. As a Precious Blood Parish under the banner of the Precious Blood, we are united in a common discernment, a discernment that helps us to discover the Call of the Blood.  To be persons who constantly ask the question and seek to respond to the call, we will acquire a particular identity in the midst of our diversities. 

We should be willing to be led, in response to the cry of the Blood that calls out to us from the ground.   To be a missionary parish implies a mobility to respond to that “cry” whether individually or as an institution.  The concept of the missionary is one that is opposed to and attitude of installation, of the search for securities.  To be “missionary” requires of the parish community a great availability to be guided as Jesus indicated to Peter in John 21:20, and to go where we would sometimes rather not venture.   St. Gaspar himself once wrote:  “Unlike statues, missionaries are not motionless.  They serve wherever God wills to call them” (to D. Domenico Silvestri, February 24, 1825, Letter # 1063).

It is the Blood that will take us "to where we would rather not go" (John 21: 20ff).  Let's let the poor be our guides, making them the center of our apostolate and of our mission.  Let us evangelize from their vantage part!  This is living in obedience to the Call of the Blood! This option lies at the heart of our apostolate and helps us to prioritize our activities as well as serves as a criterion for selecting and for evaluating our apostolic activities, in response to ever-changing needs.

This demands of us an openness to the possibility of responding to the signs of the times as discerned in community. Tensions between "traditional" and "established" apostolates and the new ones which should and must be opened, will surely emerge.  We are being called to renew our current commitments in the light of a Spirituality of the Blood and in the Missionary Charism, making "the poor", "the Other", the emphasis of our apostolate.  The Blood calls us to make our parishes and our educational centers more "missionary" in their focus.

Fr. Rosario Pacillo is a Missionary of the Precious Blood of the Italian Province and working for many years in our Parish of St. Phillip Neri in Putignano.  It is a parish much like any other medium size parish in a small town.  However, Fr. Rosario has given a special “focus” to the parish community.  In a way he is unique to our parishes in Italy.  His experience gives flesh to what I have been talking about concerning the cry of the blood and our response to that cry as a parish community. 

In Putignano Fr. Rosario discovered that one of the serious problems afflicting the youth was that of drug and substance dependence.  He decided to do something about it.  He formed a center for young people from the town who were struggling with drug addiction.  But he didn’t stand alone.  Eventually it was the parish community that took up the challenge of responding to the cry of the blood of these young people, their sons and daughters, their neighbors, their fellow townspeople.  He recruited volunteers from within the parish to help form the center and to maintain it through donations and through their volunteer efforts.  The entire parish community was mobilized in a response to this cry.  They discovered in it, their call to mission.  Fr. Rosario spends most of his time now in the Center, which has grown to include a staff of social workers and psychologists who assist the young.  In a community/family atmosphere these youth can talk about their problems, support and challenge one another, under the care and love of a parish community attentive to their needs.  At the same time the priest works with the parents and family members of the young people of the Center, helping them to work through their own issues and to prepare them better to receive the son or daughter, brother or sister, back into the family when they are again healthy.  The young people who wish, participate in the Sunday liturgies at the parish and take an active part in them.  Thus the parish community offers that safe space in which healing can take place.

This is a very good example of how one parish community has discovered her mission as a response to the most urgent cry of the blood they discerned in their midst.

Our first challenge is to overcome our paralysis, our exhaustion and our motionlessness.  The Precious Blood Parish is a mobile and flexible community, always available to go to where the Blood of Christ calls us today!

She discerns the “cry of the blood” both within and outside the local community.  Not just focused on herself, the community has a more “universal mentality,” or if you prefer, “a missionary heart and mind.”  The blood of Abel spilt on the earth, cries to heaven and to us for a response!  Our parishes need to be challenged.  We must move from an “inward looking” mentality (building strong, faith-filled communities, hand-holding, and feeling good about ourselves) to a more “outward gaze.”  Church is mission and this fact should challenge our normal parish thinking.  We need to re-define ourselves and as a parish community, to look beyond ourselves.  In reality, we are called to be a parish reaching beyond its own members and beyond territorial boundaries as a truly “catholic” parish.

This in itself calls for conversion.  We need to look at the Church not so much as a supermarket where I can go to get what I might need in any given moment (a sacrament, a baptismal certificate, etc.), to understand the Church as the People of God and that we are all responsible for continuing in the here and now the mission of Jesus Christ.  In Christifideles Laici, the Holy Father emphasized  “The need for all the faithful to share in this responsibility (for mission) is not merely a matter of making the apostolate more effective; it is a right and duty based on their baptismal dignity, whereby ‘the faithful participate, for their part, in the threefold mission of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King.’ “ (# 14)

To switch the focus and emphasis from “inward” to “outward” is not an insignificant one, since the “call of the Blood” is a call to mission that will take us into new areas where we will face new challenges.  For this we need to grow in a “missionary spirituality,” which roots itself in intimate communion with Christ who is the One was sent to evangelize (Redemptoris Missio, # 88).  In order to respond to this call to mission we need to grow in the virtues of respect and humility, as we will often be called to venture into cultures that may be unknown to us.  As we walk in those unfamiliar worlds we must shed any sense of cultural superiority, prejudices and masked racisms, for the terrain we tred is sacred ground.

One way in which the Parish Community can respond to her call to mission “ad gentes” would be through the CPPS Parish Twinning Program whose purpose is “to foster relationships between CPPS led faith communities in the US and in the mission churches of Guatemala, Chile, and Peru; to model (our) belief that we are all members of the One Body of Christ, the one Universal Church, through a mutual sharing of faith and gifts from God.”  The development of such “twinning” relationships should be encouraged in ways that avoid dependency and paternalism.  Such a relationship is a mutual one.  In other words, it is one entered into not as superior to inferior, but as “partners”, both of who will benefit enormously from the relationship.  Thus we speak of “sister parishes” rather than “daughter parishes.”  It is a relationship in which the presence of God/Christ is recognized and the inculturation of the Christian faith is respected within a local Church.  Thus the relationship permits a mutual exchange of faith and gifts from God. 

Several of our parishes in the United States (Cincinnati Province) have twinned with parishes in Guatemala.  And our large parish of the Most Precious Blood in Florence, Italy has been supporting for years the education of numerous indigenous children of our missions in Guatemala City and in the mountains around Tucuru.  They have not only helped financially but on several occasions groups of youth and adults have visited our missions to learn more about the culture and the situation first hand.  Such experiences can give a new impetus and focus to the parishes both in the USA and in Italy.  Our parish of the Most Precious Blood in the southern city of Bari, Italy, has also sponsored several children in Guatemala. 

Another option to consider might be to “twin” with a sister parish from an entirely different social/cultural setting within our own country or region.  For example, a rural Parish in Ohio might consider “twinning” with an inner city parish in Chicago or in Cleveland.  The two churches might share joint service projects, worship together at one another’s churches through liturgy exchanges, and enjoy joint social gatherings.  A concrete example of this can be seen in Lima, Peru.  There the parish school of San Borja, in a middle class area, has established a relationship with the Parish of Santa Luzmila in the poorer slums of the city.  Members of the school community have also made visits to our mountain parishes of La Oroya for pastoral experiences.  Also in South America, we have the example of St. Gaspar’s School in Santiago, Chile, whose students have had a relationship with our parish on the other side of the city, and a relationship of solidarity and fraternity has developed for the enrichment of both sides.

A Parish called and sent by the Blood of Christ is one which takes to heart the missionary mandate of the Gospel to “Go and teach all nations!”  However, “all nations” might be the neighborhood across the street, or the homeless in our squares or railway and bus stations.  What does “beyond our borders” mean for us in our concrete parish situation?

All of us need to be stretched and to broaden our horizons by the “cry of the blood.”  In a sense, our parishes need to be more “Catholic” and less parochial.  A parish’s “catholicity” is illustrated in its willingness to go beyond its own boundaries to extend the Gospel, serve those in need, and work for global justice and peace.  Through our preaching and catechetical program and ongoing and adult education, the missionary dimension of our vocation as Christians is to be emphasized.  To become a “missionary community” is a sure sign of a mature faith.  The Holy Father in his Encyclical Letter, Redemptoris Missio (1991), states: “The effectiveness of the Church’s organizations, movements, parishes and apostolic works must be measured in the light of this missionary imperative.” (#49)  This is not a work for a few agencies or one parish committee, but for every believer and every local community of faith.  Our parish prayer life, in the sharing of the Word, the testimony of others’ experiences, special “missionary awareness days”, and similar activities are different avenues by which we can form ourselves and grow in a sense of mission-mindedness.  This missionary mentality is “expressed in our prayer and stewardship, how we form our children and invest our resources, and the choices we make at work and in the public arena. (U.S. Catholic Bishops)

Concluding Reflections

            In this presentation I have hinted at some of the ways that we can discover our uniqueness as Parishes which are nurtured, called and sent by the Blood of Christ.  What I have done is paint a type of “Profile of a Precious Blood Parish.”  At least I have made a first attempt.  Surely it could be and has been further enhanced by the reflections of this week and through our ongoing discernment and experiences.

            Once again, we need to be reminded that this “conversion” will not take place simply through a decree or through a planning committee, nor simply through a Symposium such as this.   Before anything will happen, the spirituality of the Blood of Christ must be internalized.  It needs to become the unifying factor and the energizing force in our own personal lives.  Only then will we naturally communicate it and “infect others” with it. 

            To live such an incarnated and apostolic spirituality in a parish setting is an uncomfortable mission.  It implies risks and insecurities, just as the Incarnation of Jesus also had a price, in blood.  None of this will be possible to achieve without a deep life conversion, a conversion of mentality, of criterion, of options and a reordering of our parish priorities.  Our mental frameworks must change in order to see everything from the optic of the Blood.  Such is the Call that we hear as we discern how to live our vocation in a parish community that is called, strengthened, and sent by the cry of the blood!