Archbishop Michael Miller has resumed his official parish visits after a three-year pandemic-induced hiatus.
His mid-January visit to Saint Anthony of Padua Parish in Vancouver was the 26th visit in the tour that began six years ago. His most recent visit was to Saint Jude’s Parish on the weekend of Sunday, Feb. 5.
The scheduled visits take place over multiple days and allow the Archbishop to fulfill his obligation to visit all parishes in his diocese. His last parish visit before the COVID lockdown brought the program to a halt was March 15, 2020, when he visited St. Bernadette’s Parish in Surrey.
Archdiocese Vice Chancellor and visit coordinator Sister John Frances LaFever told The B.C. Catholic that the visits help the parishioners gain “a greater awareness of the people of a parish, of the gift of their own parish. It helps them to see themselves in the context of the parish family.”
In a letter sent to parishes before each visit the Archbishop explains that his purpose is both pastoral and administrative.
“I want to see first-hand the lived experience of parishioners and to strengthen their relationship with their priests and one another,” he tells parishes, adding he looks forward to meeting with parishioners “to hear their concerns, encourage them, and share my thoughts on the parish’s spiritual life and apostolic activity.”
The visits are directed by the parishes themselves so they can best showcase their ministries and let everyone come together for the event.
As significant parts of the parish community, schools are encouraged to be an important element of the visit, with the Archbishop usually touring the school to meet with staff and students.
Sister LaFever said the meetings help highlight the connection between school and parish, which fits into the larger vision of the visits’ purpose.
In his homily at St. Anthony of Padua, Archbishop Miller commented on his visit to the elementary school, saying “a parish is a family within which the school is an essential part. It’s not that there is a parish and there is a school; the school belongs integrally to the parish family, and you certainly have a very wonderful and creative school.”
During each visit he spends time addressing parish ministries, congratulating them on their successes, and offering some inspiration for future work.
To the congregation at St. Jude’s he congratulated parishioners for the “co-responsibility” they share with their pastor.
“So many of you have been active here with dedication and sacrifice for a long time,” he said, “and I thank you most heartily for recognizing your responsibility for formulating and living your parish’s mission.”
At Saint Anthony’s he took special care to remark on the “wealth of best practices” the parishioners have developed for missionary activity, telling them he hopes they will find ways to share their expertise with other parishes.
He encouraged both parishes to consider ways that their works can lead to evangelization. “No parish exists only for itself. Its mission is “to make disciples” for the kingdom,” he said at St. Jude’s.
“Admittedly the call to go out and evangelize might sound a little strange, and its relationship to parish life can be difficult to see,” he said. “Yet the truth is that the Church exists to evangelize; it is her deepest calling. By responding to this call, parishioners imitate their master, the Good Shepherd, who ‘came to seek out and to save the lost.’”
The archbishop also voiced a desire for all 77 parishes in the Archdiocese to find ways to collaborate with one another so as not to become isolated.
“I want you to remember that Catholics are not congregationalist. We live out our faith in the parish, but the reality of the Church, is, of course, [lived out in] the diocese,” he said at St. Anthony’s.
“The diocese constitutes the local Church, ensuring our Catholicity by being in communion with the Successor of Peter. We belong, of course, to a parish family, but we also belong to a diocesan family.”
The next parish visit in the Archbishop’s schedule will be to St. Monica’s Parish in Richmond, from Feb. 24- 26.
