Frameworks for life and re-opening
Welcome to the first Cathedral Connection for 2023, which marks the end of the summer holiday season, the beginning of the new calendar year, and the resumption of activity in our normal cycle of parish life.
This weekend, the Beatitudes in the Gospel presents the framework for the whole of Jesus’ ministry, where the core expectations for all his disciples is laid out. The Beatitudes guide us to a life of justice, love, and compassion in our relationship with God, humanity, and creation. They are our identity and call to action.
As a parish we begin 2023 with great expectation and excitement of our expected returning home to our blessed Cathedral. Already this year work has begun on preparing a framework of physical events required to be undertaken to enable our physical re-entry and return to the Cathedral building. This framework, along with an increase in focussed fundraising, will provide us with a timeframe of when this will be possible. This will be communicated with great rejoicing as soon as it is known.
Over the next few months teams of people and coordinators will be sought to plan and implement our liturgical and social reopening festivities; coordinate working bees (to spruce up communal areas in the complex, move furniture around, and unpack and clean items that have been in storage etc); and reengaging with parishioners and communities displaced during the closure.
Along with the excitement of the expected reopening of the Cathedral, regular and new pastoral initiatives and activities also resume from this weekend. Your participation, as you are able, in these faith and liturgical formations, and parish life enrich and bless not only us, but our entire parish and wider communities.
As we listen to the Gospel proclaimed, is there a particular Beatitudes that sounds like an invitation, an area God might be calling you to grow?
Debbie Matheson
Lay Pastoral Leader/Parish Leader
