“Every Family of Parishes will have a unified pastoral council, with other relevant and necessary consultative groups for specific areas of parish life.” (Parameter 11)
2.2 Form Family Worship Commission
In Phase 1, each parish was encouraged to strengthen its own worship commission or, if one did not exist, to create one. While it’s tempting to think of everything at the Family level right away, it’s important for each parish in your Family of Parishes to have its own worship commission, at least while Sunday Mass is taking place at the parochial church.
There are many reasons for this:
- Each parish’s worship commission can help to maintain procedures for worship in a particular church building.
- The parish worship commission should be the keeper of traditions in its particular parish.
- The parish worship commission should be among the first to identify common ground between parishes in your Family in order to move forward.
If there are parishes in your Family of Parishes where Sunday Mass takes place yet there is not currently a parish worship commission, these resources will help you start a worship commission.
In winter 2024, the Office for Divine Worship and Sacraments (ODWS) will be offering the annual workshop With Zeal and Patience: The Role of the Worship Commission, with specific information on how and when to begin bringing parish commissions together at the Family level. Make sure you are subscribed to Praenotanda (the news email of the ODWS) to receive information about dates, times and locations.
While it doesn’t hurt to begin – even now – to bring members of your individual parish commissions together at the Family level to pray, do formation and socialize (perhaps once a quarter or every six months), each parish worship commission has its own role for the coming years in advising the pastor, director of worship and other worship staff about the celebrations in their own parochial church.