Church and CEWA staff engage in a Plenary Council dialogue session during the Plenary Council sessions at the gathering for the CEWA and Perth Parish Secretaries gathering on 20 November. Photo: Amanda Murthy.
By Amanda Murthy
“Disciples are people who know they have to look beyond themselves to someone else, as their leader, guide, as the one they follow,” said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB.
“And for us, that person is Christ,” he said.
Archbishop Costelloe was speaking at the annual Parish Secretaries Day, which was held last week Tuesday 20 November at the Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA).
The full-day event, attended by more than 40 Church and Catholic Education representatives, began with a Mass and was followed by a presentation focussed on the 2020 Plenary Council theme, “Listen to what the Spirit is saying”.
Archbishop Costelloe, who was joined by Fr Greg Donovan to celebrate the Mass, recognised the efforts of the Parish Secretaries and CEWA staff as people who play an important role in both the schools and parishes of the Archdiocese.
“Anyone who has a leadership role in any Catholic or Christian community as all of you certainly do, carry the important responsibility first of making sure that our communities are places of warmth rather than the opposite,” he said.
“The local parish community is meant to be a place where people come and their wounds are healed, not a place where more wounds are inflicted.”
Archbishop Costelloe reminded those present that the point of having a Church is to help us move together towards a closer communion with God together at the Plenary Council sessions at the gathering for the CEWA and Perth Parish Secretaries gathering on 20 November. Photo: Amanda Murthy.
To be a Church that serves as a healer of people’s wounds and a warmer of their hearts, Archbishop Costelloe said we must first know what it means to be the Church.
Inspired by Vatican II, Archbishop Costelloe looked back on what he considered a revolutionary moment in the life of the Church, when Saint John XXIII called all the bishops to Rome for a council for a similar discerning period to ask the Lord what He wanted for the Church at that time.
“Many things were discussed at that council, but one thing that remains central was that the Church is like a Sacrament – that is, a sign and an instrument of communion with God and unity among all people.”
This, Archbishop Costelloe said, means that the Church in WA is meant to be a Sacrament of unity and communion with each other and fundamentally with God.
“The whole point of the Church is to help us move together towards a closer communion with God, and we do it together – because it is not just communion with God but communion with each other.
“[As an] examination of conscience, ask yourself if you are contributing to the Church as a Sacrament of communion, as supposed to of course a place of disunity and disharmony? Because that is not what the Church is meant to be,” Archbishop Costelloe added.
Tony Giglia, Dr Debra Sayce, Dr Pina Ford and Jennifer Lazberger spoke at the Plenary Council sessions at the gathering for the CEWA and Perth Parish Secretaries gathering on 20 November. Photo: Amanda Murthy.
Archbishop Costelloe added that Pope St John Paul II had many times referred to the Church as a community of the disciples of Christ.
“The Catholic tradition doesn’t understand us as individuals who run our own private journey towards God. The Catholic tradition understands us as people who are called to walk together into a greater union with God.
“So unless everything we do as the Church, deliberate and consciously is focusing our attention on Jesus, then we are missing the boat,” Archbishop Costelloe cited.
“This is how we will have a Church that is more and more like the Church God wants us to be.”
After the Mass, the group enjoyed a meal, before participating in several Plenary Council interactive dialogue sessions led by Archbishop Costelloe’s Executive Assistant Jennifer Lazberger, CEWA Executive Director Dr Debra Sayce, Team Leader Catechist Service Dr Pina Ford, and Perth 2020 Plenary Council Coordinator Tony Giglia.