"A Stewardship Parish"

As I opened my outlook calendar this morning, a meeting reminder popped up. But this meeting was not like any other meeting. This meeting was going to be at Holy Family parish in Kirkland.

Holy Family parish graciously agreed to host our next series of Liturgical Ministries Institute (LMI) courses. Thanks to Norm Bross, Holy Family's Pastoral Assistant for Liturgy and Sacramental Preparation, this meeting was convened to discuss preparations for the LMI series. Two parishioners were present as well: Sid and Pat, who will be handling registration and hospitality for the eight courses.

I began the meeting with a simple prayer, then we all engaged in a dialogue about how to handle registration, refreshments, even the handouts. After the brief 20-minute meeting, we spent another 35 minutes touring their campus. Norm showed me their 24-hour Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Pat talked about her family as we walked down the hallway of the school. Sid was proud of their new social hall with a commercial kitchen, while Norm gave me the history of their wall-to-wall painted mural in their school nursery --- handpainted by one of their parishioners! We discussed the parish campus map and how to lead LMI participants to the meeting room ahead of time. Because it may be a challenge to find. Have you seen Holy Family campus? It's great! Huge, but great! The morning renewed my spirit. It is meetings like this that remind me of our common mission in ministry: to build up God's kingdom, to give God glory, to serve God's people.

Thanks to Reverend Kurt Nagel, and Norm for opening up Holy Family parish for the LMI, and also to Sid and Pat who so graciously volunteered their time and talent. The parish of Holy Family truly are, as it says on their parish bulletin,  "a stewardship parish".