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Pastor's comments on Goal 6, Facilities Improvements, 9/9/07
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ENRICHING OUR COMMUNITY,
SHARING OUR GIFTS
• • • • • • • • •
Goal #6 of St. Perpetua Pastoral Plan:
ADVANCE FACILITIES IMPROVEMENTS
Today and for the next few weeks I want to use our time together after the scriptures to reflect on our parish Pastoral Plan and the six goals established in that document. The Plan was mailed to every registered household in April and is available on our parish website. In our summer bulletins we publicized one goal each week, along with the strategies and tactics accompanying them. As autumn unfolds I want to take each goal and elaborate on it for you. I think they are significant enough to warrant our attention and focus.
Although it’s the last goal listed in our document, I want to begin with Goal #6: Advance the Facilities Improvements of the Parish. There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the major improvements to your physical plant that you have funded in the past decade. Yesterday, several hundred people from the Lamorinda area and beyond were on our property as part of the Contra Costa Master Gardeners tour. Our “Garden of Learning” was one of the five garden sites these folks visited and, I have no doubt, the most wonderful. Creative initiative on the part of Monette and Greg Meo, and many helpers have turned an unused section of our property into something utterly unique. Last Sunday Bishop Vigneron was here to preside at the 9:30 Mass as Sr. Laurel O’Neal from our parish made her solemn profession of vows. The bishop joined us on the hillside for refreshments after the Mass and our Café Perpetua and the new shaded picnic tables funded by the school parents provided a perfect setting for such a festive occasion. None of these things existed six years ago, some not even six months ago. You have so much to be proud of as a parish family. I hope you realize that and feel great about it. As pastor, I certainly do, and I brag about you wherever and whenever I can.
In 2002, the year of our fiftieth anniversary, we set forth a Master Plan to guide our efforts for improving our facilities which were beginning to show their age. That first Capital Campaign, concluded in 2005, raised a little over two million dollars – half went toward our new Educational Center and half was set aside as “seed money” for the next phase of our improvements. The theme of that Campaign was: “Embrace the Vision… Build our Future,” and I think you’ll agree that we’ve come a long way in making your vision a reality. It’s time now to continue the building process. The parish-wide survey in 2005 called for it. The listening sessions conducted last year by our Pastoral Council insisted on it. Our Pastoral Plan names it as one of our six goals. The strategy of Goal 6 states: “Form a Facilities Steering Committee to advise the pastor and to provide vision and commitment to continuing new construction and improvements that support the attainment of our mission.”
When the Master Plan was first set forth in 2002, the workshops, led by Ratcliff Architects with many parishioners participating, spent most of the time considering a new worship space. We realized at the time that it was a project most people supported, but we also acknowledged that it was an undertaking for the future, given the cost of church construction. The intervening years and the feedback from parishioners have indicated a few realities we need to face:
1) The cost of building a new church would be a task beyond our present financial capabilities. While we would like to see improvements in our worship space – such as air-conditioning, ample space for our music ministry and for the celebration of the sacraments, better quality building materials and flooring – we are never without enough seating space in the church (except for one Mass on Christmas and one Mass on Easter).
2) Our pressing need is for a parish hall or social center that would provide adequate space for our large number of parish groups and that would enhance the social life of our community. While we host many wonderful celebrations in our current hall, there is never enough room to meet our needs – faith formation, Knights of Columbus dinners and socials, Youth Group activities, adult education, school events, hospitality after Sunday Mass, funeral receptions, etc.
3) The parish hall is one of the key factors in achieving the other five goals of the Pastoral Plan.
The site that has been proposed for a new hall or parish center is the area next to the church. By removing the current hall and making the church its own building, a new larger hall could be built next to the church, expanding into the hillside, much as we did with the Educational Center. An added feature of a new community structure could even include a second story serving as a Youth Center. With the next phase, we could also fund better heating and an air conditioning system and liturgical enhancements that would allow the liturgy to be more accessible and attractive to our parish family.
If you go to Goal #6 on our parish website you’ll see the informative power point presentation, including some architect’s drawings that can give us a hint of what a new community center might look like. It also has some slides depicting remodels of worship spaces. I put the architect’s renderings on a couple easels outside. This is only a preliminary idea and is in no way meant to be viewed as a definitive plan. However, the design can help stir our imaginations as we look ahead to yet another step in our Master Plan. In the late autumn I’d like us to conduct a feasibility study, as we did for the first Capital Campaign, using the professional firm of Olwell and Linhares. A feasibility study will help us to assess what our fundraising capability would be for the next phase. If the report is favorable, indicating that the community understands the need and is willing to fund it, we could mount the next phase of our Capital Campaign at the beginning of 2008.
I found today’s scriptures rather providential. The Book of Wisdom says: The deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans. Some people were beginning to feel that way about me as a number of parishioners prodded me in the past few months – “Hey, when’s the next phase of our Capital Campaign gonna get going? You need to move on this!” Our Pastoral Plan has been just the impetus I needed to forge ahead. And Jesus gives our parish wise advice in today’s gospel: Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? A feasibility study in the next couple months will be the wisest step toward discovering whether or not you are willing to place your trust in God’s providence once again and build on the success we have achieved thus far. St. Paul tells his friend: the good you do ought to be voluntary and not forced. Obviously, it’s only through your goodness and support, freely offered, that any of this can happen. Let’s all commit ourselves to this challenge which is so vital to our community and our future.
Thank you for your attention and for your ongoing support of our community.
Father John Kasper, OSFS