Fr. Simon's Letter - February 12, 2023

The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is what we have been hearing at Mass these past couple of Sundays and we will continue to hear parts of it until the Sunday before Lent. The sentence in this week’s gospel, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” is quite challenging. Jesus was talking about getting into the kingdom of heaven.  It sounds more like focusing on life after death than life now here on earth. The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is really a manual of discipleship. Jesus was obviously concerned about how people best live in the here and now. Putting all that together, Jesus seemed to be talking about how to live if we want to experience now what God offers us, presumably the experience of what we were created for in the first place — human fulfillment, social harmony, personal peace and joy.

Last week, I had mentioned that as part of the Renew My Church process, we are moving into its next phase ‘Building a New Reality’ guided by the mission imperatives to "Make Disciples – Build Community – Inspire Witness."

As we take stock and plan on how we move forward with this task, it is a happy coincidence that the Archdiocese of Chicago, along with fifteen other dioceses in the country, is initiating a two-fold survey. Then, the Archdiocese, individual parishes and priests can use data generated from this survey to discern, plan and grow to be better disciples. Led by the Catholic Leadership Institute, one part of the survey, the ‘Priest Leadership Inventory’ is to be completed by all active priests to help their personal growth as well as the diocese to plan the ongoing formation of priest leadership. 

The other part of the survey, called the ‘Disciple Maker Index’ (DMI), is where your input is vital.  This anonymous 75-question survey takes about fifteen minutes to complete. It is an invitation to let your voice be heard by reflecting on where you are on your own journey as a disciple. The data from the survey will help us to make decisions that will help people wherever they are in their journey of as disciples. It will assist us in recognizing the gifts our parishioners are blessed with, and the potential to make best use of them as we envision future possibilities of relationship and participation. The survey will be launched on Ash Wednesday and will give you enough of time, until the end of March 2023, to complete it. Please look for more details in the upcoming bulletins and on our website. Your participation will greatly help us grow to become a vibrant community of disciples eager to inspire others. Thank you for your cooperation.

Blessings!!