Dear Brothers and Sisters,

People tell me after Mass (especially visitors) how Mass is so prayerful. This parish is very blessed to have many people who are sincere about their relationship with Our Lord. Hopefully every parish is recognized as a place of prayer.  Whether you are at Mass, Adoration, bible study, That Man is You, religious education, youth group, senior group, preschool, and all of other activities in our parish, prayer is central.  This is something we cannot take for granted. Our Lord wants us to turn to Him, every day with sincere hearts.

It doesn't matter how nice the beautiful the parish looks, how great the choir sounds, how amazing the homily is… none of those things matter if we don't understand that we are called to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  This seems so obvious, and yet, in day-to-day activities, we can become very busy and forget that Jesus died for us that we might have eternal life.

What exactly does it mean to be in relationship with Jesus Christ?  In part, it means we must invite Him to be with us, our families, our coworkers, our friends. Being in relationship with Jesus Christ means that we must seek His guidance for our lives AND for our parish. To be in love with Jesus means that we believe that Our Lord love us, hears us, and He wants to answer our prayers according to His will.

Here are a few ideas for helping you do this in our parish. There is much more on the website called: www.amazingparish.org.

• Write an "Amazing Parish" prayer intention (or customize the one below) and pray it at any parish event. The point is to storm heaven, asking for God to pour graces on your parish and help make it truly amazing.  
• Encourage parishioners to incorporate the intention into any of their favorite devotions.  
• Put a small sign in your Adoration Chapel asking adorers to spend 5-10 minutes of their adoration time in intentional prayer for an amazing parish
• Group rosaries before/after Mass or individual rosaries on a specific day of the week to be said for our parish intentions
• Novenas – consider praying a novena, 9 days of intentional prayer, perhaps invoking your parish's patron saint

Amazing Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,
You have gathered us together as a parish to be Your visible life in our world.
Here we unite in worship, proclaim Your word, celebrate the Eucharist, and are sent forth to share Your love and make disciples.

Lord, we take your Great Commission seriously and long for our parish to be so on-fire that we draw people to You.
Help us in that endeavor, as we strive to work together—ordained, religious and laity.
Please make our parish amazing, through
Your power and Your grace.

Amen

BACK TO LIST