Planning day – Santuario de San Antonio Parish

(L-R) Letty Syquia , head of Marian Cenacle; Tina Teehankee, head of St. Francis Friendship Home Livelihood and Spirituality Center and Secretary-PPC; Betty Go Roxas-Chua, Catholic Women’s League President; Rafael Galvez, head of EMHC (Eucharistic Ministry); Edmund Lim, VP-PPC; Jayme Blanco, President-PPC and Fr. Joel Sulse, OFM, SSAP Parish Priest.

The Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) together with the heads of the different ministries met recently for a brief discussion of plans for the parish’s 2014 activities. Led by an opening prayer by Fr. Joel Sulse, OFM and followed by a brief introduction on Pope Francis’ Encyclical of the Laity, the following activities were proposed for 2014:
• Planned monthly talks by guest speakers on topics from Pope Francis’ Encyclical of the Laity.
• Franciscan priests to share their knowledge and experience on the Franciscan community through their homilies during weekend masses for the month of February.
• A Ministry Fair wherein the different ministries will market their activities at the entrance of the main church and try to invite mass goers to participate, become members and even to donate.
• 2014 Buling Buling theme will be on things Filipino and will have the title: Bayanihan, Haranahan sa Sayawan sa SSAP.

The objectives are to encourage the different ministries to invite the youth to participate in their activities and open youth activities to all ministries. How to encourage the youth – parishioners and non-parishioners alike – to be more active in church so that they will become future ministry members and heads is a long term goal that the PPC envisions.

The parish theme for this year is: One Family, One Parish, One Faith.

And as 2014 is the Year of the Laity, we are all called to be apostles of Christ. We choose to be brave and we are all called to be saints. We are sent forth as heroes, doing the best we can to bring the gospel message of Christ to the world.

The following is a summary of the Introduction of Pope Francis’ Encyclical of the Laity that was presented at the PPC Planning Day held January 11, 2014.

The gospel according to Matthew is on the coverage of Cycle A for Sunday readings this year. The SSAP through the PPC and through the different heads of the Ministries reflect on this gospel in planning the year’s activities.

Matthew starts off his gospel with a genealogy to present the evidence for Jesus’ claim to be the King of the Jews. He refers to Jesus as the son of David to link the old and the new.

Matthew was a Jew and wrote for fellow Jews. He wrote to Jewish Christians, to cope with the non-Jewish Christians who were increasingly joining their ranks. He wanted the Church to be a Church for all.

In The Gospel of Matthew, Jesus multiplies the loaves twice, in MT 14:13 and MT 15:32. Why? When you read the multiplication stories, it is important to see not how many loaves there were but how many baskets remained.

The 12 baskets remaining symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel. The 7 baskets remaining symbolize the Creation Covenant.

In today’s world, we believe in Jesus but are confused in how we interpret the law.

Furthermore, the gospel is divided into 5 main discourses, which talk about the following:
1. Beatitudes – how we are blessed despite our sufferings.
2. What is it like to be an apostle/evangelist.
3. Heaven – what the kingdom of God is like.
4. Heaven on Earth – what you do here, matters in heaven.
5. How to get to heaven – Ch. 25 “care for the weak” – and to all nations.

The impact that Pope Francis has done in his short term as a Pope (since Mar 13, 2013) reflects deeply on this gospel. Pope Francishas done many examples of preaching through action. Many significant things that he has done touches on the gospel of Matthew: caring for the weak, bringing the children close, blessing the suffering, loving non-Catholics. We look at his first apostolic exhortation (memo in Vatican language) to all of us written last November 2013 and the message is simple: we are all called to evangelize, it has to start in the parish, then we reach out to the weak in society. He also mentions specifically Asia and Africa. This is called EvangeliiGaudium.

In this light, the challenge for the PPC and the different Ministry heads is: How do we respond with our planned parish activities for the year?