WESTERN BUREAU:
Catholics in the Parish of the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Montego Bay are this weekend in the process of celebrating its first ever parish assembly. The celebration ends today.
In Catholicism, an assembly is a convocation or gathering of all church members to reflect together on the gospel and to discern what God is saying to the church.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner in September, Msgr. Etuale Leolofi said that the assembly consisted of three phases: the preparation, the celebration and the implementation.
Over the past two months, the Catholic faithful had gathered every Saturday for workshops to prepare themselves for the celebration of the assembly. Various topics including worship, marriage and family, youth, lay involvement, ecumenism, vocations, among others were discussed and explored. From these, workshop proposals were made on how to effectively incorporate these topics into the parish's ministry.
The celebration of the assembly began on Friday with an opening mass. Most Rev. Charles Dufour, bishop of Montego Bay, was the chief celebrant.
Different sessions in the evening and on Saturday were held to discuss the proposals from the workshops are submitted to the entire community for consideration. The assembly ends today, the Catholic feast of the Epiphany, with a live mass on Love TV. Implementation of the proposals into the parish's ministry follows.
According to Msgr. Etuale the assembly is to give the community the opportunity to lift itself anew, learn about its environment and find new ways to respond to it. -Roy Sanford
