To Download this report, click HERE
At our Parish Town Hall Meeting in January, several questions were discussed by over 130 parishioners. Here are the results of that meeting.
Knowledge and education – want more
Giving back
Reinforce our faith
Children need to be more involved
Inspirational priests
Community devotional prayer
Gospel to apply to today
Being met
Nourished by regular practice of faith
Faith sharing groups
Priests set examples
Social Connection
Homily – faith applied to our daily life
Make spiritual conversations part of our lives
• Prayer – quiet and communal
• Peace, a sense of belonging to St. Hilary's
• Feeling connected to this community.
• The need to feel that I'm becoming a better person and answering "a call to holiness".
• All agreed that this is a very personal answer which changes over the course of our lives.
• Need to be inspired and regularly renewed to stay grounded and to remain on the path towards holiness.
• Receive feedback and knowledge about our Catholic beliefs
• Being moved regularly at Mass
• Need for a really good confessor – the ability to bare your soul to your priest.
• Find solace in church in prayers.
• The Eucharist – fulfilled by being in church physically
• A good homily that 1) can be understood 2) that connects to the real world, with
tangible ways to live out the
scriptures, ie put into action, serving and sharing
• Spiritual guidance
• Before mass – quiet time; spiritual reverence after communion – quiet time to pray.
• Consolation
• Peace, love, faith, hope and charity
• Scripture and devotional practices
• Instruction – learning how to pray
• Evening prayer, contemplative prayer, Taize, meditation
• Reading Scripture & religious books
• A venue – leadership and community
• Practicing my faith – giving and forgiving
• To be in union with God
• Celebration!
Living Faith booklets
Availability of Outreach
Being challenged to grow
Providing different paths
Communication
Taize prayer
Daily and weekly masses
Keep liturgies vibrant
Bible study groups
Church door always open - parish here in crisis or joy
Need youth to participate
More information on ministry that people are personally involved in
We have an extended family here
• Sr. Dolores's running of RCIA
• Awe and reverence in which our priest say Mass and the Eucharistic prayer provide the spiritual background
• Tying together the key messages from the Mass, music, faith sharing and ministries so we can understand and
relate the messages to our daily lives.
• Availability of our parishioners to work together as a community invites participation
• .Outstanding music and liturgy that feed the soul masses, and other ways to pray
• If you cannot fulfill your spiritual needs at St. Hilary, the fault lies in yourself. It offers silent/private prayer,
adoration, charismatic group, non-music Mass, Angel Choir, Children's Choir, Adult 25-voice chorus, guitar Mass
with trio. Faith-sharing groups for both men and women, Meditation in Art, Retreats, etc.
• Inspirational guest speakers - ie., Thomas Keating
• Religious Education
• Faith sharing with people with like minded intent
• The quality and availability of priests and leadership
• The parish feeling and acting like an extended family
• Dependable Sacrament of Reconciliation
Technology
Set up service projects for children
More faith sharing and small group gatherings
Encourage participation and more for teens
Become less dependant on priests
More outreach for internal adoration
More theology in our homilies
More Reconciliation services
Create an environment that gives us openness
Bring people here to see the traditional treasures of the church
Spirit of reverence before mass begins and after communion
Return to more traditional devotional prayers - rosary, chaplet, adoration
Community updates in the bulletin (who is sick, deaths, marriages, baptisms etc.)
Need to be more aware of God's paintings and every moment of our lives a prayer
• We are a diverse group across all ages - We need to include our youth (under 20 crowd), young families as well as
the old guard. (An example was today's meeting where many families could not come to due time and length of
meeting and no childcare).
• Explore e-mail communication
• Those of us who are engaged have to extend a personal invitation to "come and see" to those who appear shy,
standoffish, etc. Make it warm and friendly as though you are inviting them to your home.
• Have people talk at Sunday mass to share what they are involved in - just for 10 minutes - and encourage people
to talk further with such a representative at hospitality (Ministry Fairs have not worked in the past because people
seem to be too overwhelmed with the choices). Have this person take names and follow-up with anyone who has
an interest in participating in such a ministry.
• If in a ministry, reach out to include/invite others
• Keep updated Book of all of St Hilary's Ministries - maybe put in bulletin in January and then again in
September when people may be looking for ways to become more involved.
• Communication is absolutely critical, and to bring into the current social media trends - we should adopt and
activate a Facebook community (Sr. Dolores suggested a Faithbook community)
• Link to calendars
• Volunteer opportunities
• Calendar of events
• Connect to spiritual content and/or social welfare issues
• Automatically pushed emails/alerts to email addresses
• Further develop hospitality programs before and after Mass
• Offer programs prior to the start of RCIA that help to encourage ex-Catholics to attend this program.
• Offer more for teens spiritually.
• More outreach with San Quentin/St. Vincent de Paul
• Homeless luncheons held at St. Hilary
• Every Sunday one strong announcement at end of Mass with strong encouragement to read the Bulletin. Once
people start to read it regularly, they get hooked.
• Better religious education program that works for grades 5-8 and teen outreach.
• More events like the Children's Christmas Pageant.
• More reconciliation services.
• Father-Son retreat.
• Scripture Study
• Stations of the Cross on Fridays in Lent.
• Homilies about the necessity of a prayer life, about Church teaching on the sanctity of life.
• Classes or speakers on John Paul II's Theology of the Body
• Reading groups for some of the papal encyclicals.
• More access to our priests such as small group gatherings with them.
• More frequent faith sharing group experiences.
• 24/7 Adoration
• Always show up and ask others to attend - Invite
• Bring other people up and in to discover or rediscover the traditional treasures of the church
The results of the Gallup ME(25) Survey will continue to be material for the work of the new Parish Council and the new Pastor to use in the growth and forward movement of this community of faith. The survey gave us a broad range of ideas and topics to study and work with over the years to come. Thank you to all who participated in this informative tool which will have a significant contribution to our work as a people of prayer and action in the Kingdom of God.
A copy of the "scorecard" (results) of the Gallup ME(25) Survey is posted on the bulletin board in the parish hall. If you wish to have a copy, you can obtain one by calling the parish office.
