St Joseph’s Church to focus on the Five ‘Ls’ for 2020

Jan 09, 2020

By Fr George Packiasamy
The Church of St Joseph will focus on the Five Ls (Lost, Little, Last, Least and Lonely).

This was decided and agreed upon after the Parish Pastoral Assembly (PPA) held on December 7, 2019.

The Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur Pastoral Team, led by Msgr Mitchel Anthony, had earlier on given survey forms to discuss three of eight cluster findings, actions, plans and strategies for the Parish. The three clusters were – Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC), Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue (EIRD) and Parish Youth.

The Archdiocese Pastoral Team divided the participants into 10 groups and gave us four questions related to missions –

i) Mission on Relationships
ii) Mission on Outreach
iii) Mission on Unity and
iv) Mission on Social Media.

The purpose of the group discussions and sharing was to find out what our Parish, as well as the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur, need to focus on for the coming year. Nine out of the ten groups chose to discuss the need of Mission on Relationships.

In his speech, Archbishop Julian Leow highlighted that the various ministries and clusters  should work collectively and take their roles seriously in the Parish. He invited us to engage with everyone, to have dialogues with people of other Faiths, and for the youth and leaders to be rooted in community life and use social media wisely. His Grace was quite happy with the various outreach programmes we had in the past, particularly the success of the Third World Day of the Poor.

On the First Sunday of Advent, the parishioners of St Joseph’s Church decided our strategies for our Parish mission with focus being on the 5Ls (Lost, Little, Last, Least and Lonely).

They will strive to build relationships with those in the Five Ls. At every weekend Mass, the mission statement is recited: We, as parishioners of St Joseph’s Church, are sent forth joyfully to embrace, to care for and to heal the 5Ls. In this statement, we clearly state the three “verbs” as our “values” to  embrace, to care for and to heal in building strong and successful relationships with the 5Ls. Our ultimate goal is to ensure our parishioners build ties and foster healthy relationships with people of 5Ls.

Let us strive to build our Parish with shared leadership and feelings of connectedness with one another as we build our Mission on Relationships,  keeping in mind the 5Ls.--stjosephsentul.org