Fr Philip Heng was the Novice Director of the Loyola Jesuit Novitiate in Singapore. Last April 1, he was installed as the new parish priest of St Ignatius Church. Here he wrote of his first weeks in his new mission.
A Parish ministry’s challenges of 4,300 parishioners are so very different from the confines of the four novitiate walls. Still, I am blessed to have good and very supportive lay collaborators and staff. I have requested each of the ministries/groups of the Parish to give me a written Evaluation Report, that is, their Goal, Activities, Strengths, Weaknesses, Suggestions for Improvements. I have over that past weeks been meeting the leaders of each of the 38 ministries/groups.
Having a personal chat with the group leaders gives me the opportunity to meet them face-to-face. I believe, at present I have a reasonably good sense of the parish. I have also been in close consultation with our Parish Jesuit Team and our Parish Pastoral Council members and staff with regards to coming up with an effective Parish model that upholds both the Archdiocesan vision and the Society’s inseparable integrating dimensions of “The service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice” of our apostolic services.
As such, I am in the process of formulating a parish structure that includes both a social (poor, needy) and an Ignatian Spirituality dimension in all ministries/groups of the Parish. These aspects will eventually permeate all ministries/groups. This structure will be presented to the parishioners (in the coming month) for their views of whether they wish to take on this parish model or not. So far, the responses have been one of “excitement” and hope that we are moving in the right direction.
All these “structures” will work only if our parishioners and lay leaders “buy in” to the vision of what a “Jesuit parish” is about. Thus, the “structure” must be a workable Parish Pastoral Council structure that ensures a participative and dynamic synergy of relationships take place at all levels of the parish. There is much to be done.
