WelCom March 2019:
Thomas Saywell
On Thursday 14 March, the Palmerston North Diocesan Young Catholics (DYC) team is hosting the Diocese’s annual Pastoral Day. This year it is to be held at St Mary’s Parish Centre, Whanganui.
The Pastoral Days offer a collective place of discussion for people from various ministries, communities, regions and walks of life, and to give insights into specific pastoral needs.
This year, the Pastoral Day has a unique ‘youth flavour’. The theme, ‘Encounter’, will look at how young people experience and live their Catholic faith today and why this needs to transform our communities. This idea grew from discussions in 2018 between Bishop Charles Drennan, Fr Marcus Francis, Parish priest of the Catholic Parish of Whanganui – The Parish Katorika ki Whanganui, and DYC.
The DYC team said the day will not just be about looking how to evangelise or work with young people; rather that young people are often the first to recognise new movements of the Spirit – and that communities need to be transformed by this new life. The team wants the day to be a time of discovery, dialogue and transformation.
DYC’s vision echoes Pope Francis’ words at the concluding Mass of World Youth Day: ‘You, dear young people, are not the future but the now of God. He invites you and calls you in your communities and cities to go out and find your grandparents, your elders; to stand up and with them to speak out and realise the dream that the Lord has dreamed for you.’
The DYC team is excited to share their kaupapa with representatives from schools and parishes at the Pastoral Day. On behalf of Bishop Charles invitations have been extended to the Diocese’s Catholic school principals and directors of religious studies, special character prefects and leaders from Catholic colleges, priests, youth ministers, chaplains, and pastoral workers.
Please contact Thomas Saywell at tsaywell@pndiocese.org.nz for more information.