New grants will help people to discover the faith

New grants will help people to discover the faith

By Ronnie Convery

New outreach campaigns to bring people to faith are being nurtured thanks to the first grants from the Archdiocese’s recently established Evangelisation Fund.

The Fund was set up by Archbishop Nolan last year to promote initiatives aimed at reaching out to people who may never have had contact with the Catholic faith.

Now the first batch of grants has been made and the recipients come from across the Archdiocese.

Among the beneficiaries are:

• A new outreach programme aimed at deaf people. The Evangelisation Fund has provided £2,500 for this project to help with training, transport and meeting costs (See page 6).

• A Youth Academy for young people aged 11–18 to help them grow in their relationship with God and develop their gifts and talents in a Catholic context outside of school. The Evangelisation Fund has provided £8,950 to cover half of the costs of the pilot for the year.

• “Called by Name – Fishers of Faith” – a new initiative to equip young people with the opportunity, skills and confidence to evangelise in their homes, schools, parishes and wider society using the Spiritus programme sponsored by a cluster of parishes across two high schools. The Evangelisation Fund has provided up to £10,000. Materials will be developed to use in other clusters.

Among the beneficiaries of the first tranches of funding are parishes including Immaculate Conception Maryhill, St Augustine’s Milton, Our Lady and St Helen’s Condorrat and Holy Cross, Croy. Organisations which have benefitted include Firecloud based in Clydebank.

Archbishop Nolan said: “I am glad to see that people have taken up the challenge to find new ways to evangelise. The Evangelisation Fund Committee hopes these initial awards will inspire other parishes to begin a new initiative in their parish. We look forward to the next round of applications and to many more ideas for evangelisation emerging in the Archdiocese.”

In addition to the grants listed above the new fund has supported a range of parish initiatives, including pop-up evangelisation events, a mail drop ‘meet your neighbour’ campaign, and a breakfast club for families (A list of awards for these projects is on page 6).

Archbishop Nolan said: “We have focused recently on the need to trim our resources so as to have vibrant parishes. But vibrant parishes don’t exist for themselves, but rather to act as a leaven in a local community, reaching out beyond their comfort zones and proposing faith in Jesus Christ to those who may know little or nothing of the Christian faith.

“I would encourage other parishes or church organisations to consider how they can evangelise in new ways and apply for support.”

‘You are the salt of the earth’

By Brian Swanson

Final year pupils from every Catholic secondary school in the Archdiocese embarked on their Caritas journey at a magnificent commissioning service in St Mary’s, Calton, hearing a simple but inspiring Gospel message from Archbishop Nolan who told them “You are the salt of the earth.”

He added: “As salt is used to flavour our food, to enhance it, so too will the acts of love you carry out over the next few months enhance the world you live in. God is love and by committing yourselves today to these acts of love for others you will be adding more love to the world.”

Since Pope Benedict XVI famously urged young people to become ‘saints of the 21st century’ during his visit to Scotland 14 years ago, almost 15,000 young people from parishes throughout the country have been given awards for work with parishes, churches, school communities and individuals.

Now it is the turn of this year’s cohort who almost filled St Mary’s – the second oldest church in the Archdiocese and the only one big enough to accommodate the around 800 pupils who will be will be among those who will be honoured at the annual Caritas Awards Ceremony in the Clyde Auditorium on June 5 next year.

After Archbishop Nolan addressed them and offered prayers for their journey ahead, they stood to make their commissioning promises, responding with the words: “With God as my help, I will”.

Individual pupils accompanied by a staff member, then brought their Caritas badges to the sanctuary where they were blessed by the Archbishop.

Earlier pupils placed candles at the foot of the altar and the service ended with the same pupils picking candles from different schools for whom they will pray during the coming months.

World unites to pray the Rosary

By Ronnie Convery

Millions of people from around the world are expected to prepare for the Holy Year by praying the Rosary on the first-ever World Rosary Day scheduled for this month.

And the invitation has gone out for parishioners across the Archdiocese to join together on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to say the prayer either alone or together with others as part of the global event.

It begins at 7pm on October 7, in New Zealand, at the Marian parish of Saint Mary’s, Pukekaraka, in the Maori territory of Ōtaki, Father Phil Cody will recite the Rosary in the Maori language together with his parishioners, and thus launch World Rosary Day, a day of prayer focused on the Holy Rosary to be marked all round the world.

The event is a response to the request of Pope Francis’ call to “dedicate the year preceding the Jubilee event, 2024, to a great ‘symphony’ of prayer’”, with petitions directed “to the Virgin Mary to accompany the Church on the path of preparation for the event of grace of the Jubilee.”

Many confraternities, sanctuaries, religious orders and other lay associations with a strong Marian spirituality have already signed up for the global event.

Many Shrines, including the the International Shrine of Our Lady of Knock (Ireland), various national shrines, such as Our Lady of the Cape in Canada and Our Lady of Mount Carmel (New York USA), are also participating, as well as many Legion of Mary groups.

In Rome, at 7pm (6pm UK time) the Rosary will be recited in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, in the chapel of the Salus Populi Romani, a place of special spiritual significance ahead of the Jubilee.

Students from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the Angelicum) will walk in procession to the Basilica.

You can find out more about World Rosary Day at: www.worldrosaryday.com

Why Mission Sunday involves YOU!

By Pope Francis

Dear brothers and sisters!

The theme I have chosen for this year’s World Mission Day is taken from the Gospel parable of the wedding banquet … After the guests refused his invitation, the king, the main character in the story, tells his servants: “Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find”

Reflecting on this key passage in the context of the parable and of Jesus’ own life, we can discern several important aspects of evangelisation. These appear particularly timely for all of us…

In the king’s command to his servants we find two words that express the heart of the mission: the verbs “to go out” and “to invite”.

I take this opportunity to thank all those missionaries who, in response to Christ’s call, have left everything behind to go far from their homeland and bring the Good News to places where people have not yet received it, or received it only recently.

Let us not forget that every Christian is called to take part in this universal mission by offering his or her own witness to the Gospel in every context, so that the whole Church can continually go forth with her Lord and Master to the “crossroads” of today’s world.

Today’s drama in the Church is that Jesus keeps knocking on the door, but from within, so that we will let him out! Often we end up being an ‘imprisoning’ Church which does not let the Lord out, which keeps him as ‘its own’, whereas the Lord came for mission and wants us to be missionaries.

May all of us, the baptised, be ready to set out anew, each according to our state in life, to inaugurate a new missionary movement, as at the dawn of Christianity!

The mission for all requires the commitment of all. In the footsteps of the Second Vatican Council and my Predecessors, I recommend to all dioceses throughout the world the service of the Pontifical Mission Societies …the collections of World Mission Day in all the local Churches are entirely destined to the universal fund of solidarity that the Pontifical Society of the Propagation of the Faith then distributes in the Pope’s name for the needs of all the Church’s missions.

Finally, let us lift our gaze to Mary … with the joy and loving concern of our Mother, with the strength born of tenderness and affection, let us go forth to bring to everyone the invitation of the King, our Saviour. Holy Mary, Star of Evangelisation, pray for us!

Mission Sunday is marked on 20th October 2024.