Discerning Mission - Week 3
The Missionary Witness of the Parish
Questions in Preparation for Week 3
19th October 2026
The Church exists for mission. All the baptised are called to be missionary disciples. For most Catholics their parish is key for inspiring and participating in missionary activity.
Questions to stimulate reflection:
- To what extent are our parishes intentionally missionary? Please give some examples.
- Identify times when witnessing to Christ was not planned but came naturally or perhaps only recognised later. Does the fact that the witness was unplanned have any significance?
- In our remote places or those areas with no resident priest or in Chapels of Ease used only for Sunday Mass when else do we assemble or minister together as a Christian community?
- How does our parish reach out to newcomers within our area?
- How do you think our parishes can renew their missionary spirit?
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Presentation Week 3 – The Missionary Witness of the Parish
Several years ago I met the then Nuncio, Archbishop Joseph Adams, at an event in Edinburgh. He asked me how things were and I decided to share a challenging situation for me. I explained that Argyll and the Isles is a rural diocese with small communities. At that time a particular parish, geographically large and remote, had a very small congregation on a Sunday. Naturally the parishioners wanted a resident priest but my concern was what effect the seemingly low work level and the area’s isolation could have on a young priest. He asked me how many people lived within the parish boundaries. I answered about 3,000. He then asked if everyone was a Catholic? “No, we are very much the minority”. His final question was: “Do all the other people living in the area practice a faith?” “No, an even smaller percentage than us”, I replied. “Well then”, he concluded, there is a lot of work to be done in that parish. We just need to be more missionary”.
To be honest, that was my own hunch. As a young priest in Paisley Diocese I would sometimes hear it said “Only such and such an amount of people attend Mass in that parish, there is nothing for a priest to do”. I was always uncomfortable with such statements because I could see there were literally thousands of houses within the parish! It seemed that the evangelising focus was restricted to ministering to those who came to us rather than us going out with the Good News to the people.
Our parishes are extremely important. Our parishes offer people experiences of Christ and so help them growth in faith and discipleship. Tonight you will reflect on the missionary nature, missionary activity and its effectiveness within our parishes.
During your Conversation in the Spirt please do not dwell on the need for mission or that that we must become more mission minded. This has already been discerned. The next stage of discernment is now necessary. Our society has greatly changed and will continue to do so. Therefore, how do we be missionaries in Argyll and the Isles today? What manner of outreach is needed? Are we offering what contemporary people require? What manner of conversion is required for us to become the type of missionary parishes that the Lord is calling for today?
Some concrete examples for our own diocese could include:
- In our most rural communities which have only a handful of practicing Catholics, how can we better support them while also reaching out to the wider population?
- If your parish does not have a resident priest or if you attend a Chapel of Ease how often does your community gather outside of Sunday Mass? If parishioners rarely gather together for worship apart from Sunday Mass or rarely communally act in any other way is this sufficient for a Catholic parish?
- Many people relocate to the Highlands and Islands and so now live within our parishes. How well do we strive to make connections with them?
- Can we do more, as a diocese or in deaneries and parishes to accommodate our fellow Catholics from the Oriental Churches?
Resources that may be especially helpful this week:
