Mags GarganLay visitation teams are setting out two-by-two this week to call to all the homes in a Co. Derry parish, in an initiative to reach out and welcome people back to the Church.
The aim of the ‘Big Invite’ is to offer a personal invitation to return to the Faith to the more than 80% of the people of Ballymagroarty who no longer attend Mass.
“The ‘Big Invite’ comes from our awareness that we miss them, that we yearn for their return and now invite them back to the practice of the Faith,” said Fr Paddy O’Kane, PP of Holy Family parish.
The idea for the project came about when parishioners approached Fr O’Kane to discuss how to “reach out to the 80% we do not see except at weddings, funerals, baptisms, Christmas and Easter”. “I think anything that reaches out is worth doing,” he said.
Fr O’Kane made an appeal for volunteers at Masses in the parish over recent weeks to give up an hour each week to the initiative and 36 people were commissioned last week to go out in twos like the first disciples.
Working in three groups the volunteers will hand in a ‘Big Invite’ leaflet to every home in the area, containing parish details, Mass times, Confession times and information on the parish novena in October and the parish mission next year.
“Parallel to that the rosary group will be praying for every one of the about 2,500 families in the parish. They will pray an Our Father or Hail Mary for each family in the areas being visited and the rest of this pastoral outreach we leave to the Holy Spirit,” Fr O’Kane said, adding that “If even one person returns to the practice of the Faith it will all have been worthwhile.”