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Pastors’ Meets Report

A meeting of the Pastors of the Province of St. Thomas the Apostle, India, the Custody of the Mary, Mother of God, India and the Foundation of St. Francis of Assisi, North East India was held from January 3rd to 4th 2019 on the theme: “Sent to Evangelize in Fraternity and Minority in the Parish.” The Vicar Provincial addressed the gathering. The meeting was animated by Msgr. (Dr.) Jose Navez, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Vijayapuran, an expert on pastoral care, Spiritual direction and pastoral counselling. The meeting reflected the document “Sent to Evangelize in Fraternity and Minority in the Parish - Handbook for Parish Ministry, by the Secretariat General for Evangelization, General Curia OFM. An orientation cum summary of the document was presented by Friar Johnson MV. The meeting consisted of talks, study of the document, presentations of reports by Friar Pastors about the challenges, life and mission of their respective parishes, group discussions, and workshop on planning for the future. There were 19 participants, although 25 pastors were registered for the meeting.

The pastors meeting reflected on the following points;

a) the social-cultural-religious-ecclesial context in which the parish finds itself, b) the signs of renewal already present in parochial life, c) the most important and urgent challenges for the evangelizing mission of the parish community, d) the motives for which the friars have accepted responsibility for the parish and recognize their specific contribution in the course of the history, e) the importance of martyria, liturgia, koinonia, diakonia, and missio in the life of the fraternity and in that of the parish, f) promotion of Franciscan traditions and Franciscan movements such as OFS, Youfra in the parish, g) discussions on initiatives to have inter-Franciscan parish activities for laity, youth and children, h) exchange of ideas on how to regularize the formation collections on the feast of St. Francis, and organize benefactors’ day and i) plan out developing an addresses bank of benefactors (local benefactors) for the project office of the Province.

We express our sincere gratitude to Br. Johnson MV, the Secretary for Mission and Evangelization, Br. Dominic C.J., the Animator of Evangelization, Br. Balthazar, the Provincial Definitor, and the Team members for organizing the event and Br. Charles A, the Guardian of St. Louis Friary.

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