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Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Week of March 3, 2003

I am standing at the door knocking

Oblate mission parish seeks out fallen away Catholics

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Jeananne Kirwin is not the kind of person who goes around knocking on people's doors trying to convert them to Catholicism. It's just not her style. But this city lawyer and mother of four has been doing a lot of door-knocking lately.

Twice since early January Kirwin and other members of the combined St. John the Evangelist/Holy Spirit Parish have visited homes in their parish inviting fallen-away Catholics to come back to the Church and to participate in the upcoming Oblate parish mission.

They have visited over 1,100 homes in both parishes and have gotten only one negative response. That's a clear sign of success to Kirwin, who initially had to force herself to participate in the home visits.

Comfort zone

"Knocking on people's doors was definitely outside my comfort zone," she explained. "I don't consider myself very private in my religion, but I'm certainly not an evangelical type of person. And so to do this was definitely something that I had to think about and push myself to do."

Kirwin said many people confuse the Catholic home-visitors with Jehovah Witness. "The difference with us is we are not trying to convert anybody to our Catholic faith," she explained. "We are just welcoming all Catholics back into this parish and the occasion is the mission."

The mission runs from March 8 to 22 and includes special small prayer group meetings and Great Assemblies filled with Scripture readings, reflection, songs, testimonials and discussion. The event is put together by the parish in conjunction with the Oblate Mission Team, a group of 25 Oblate missionaries dedicated to doing parish-level evangelization.

Kirwin, who co-coordinates the mission on behalf of St. John Parish, describes the event as "a special mission where the parish makes an effort to reach out to the people rather than just waiting for people to come to the church. This is a mission where parishioners go out and deliver letters of invitation to all the known Catholic and registered parishioners in the parish."

"We are hoping that a familiar face and a smile might encourage people to come to the mission."

- Jeananne Kirwin

Last year, the 17-member core team behind the mission divided both parishes into 26 zones of between 36 and 58 homes each. Two volunteer home visitors were assigned to each of the zones. Kirwin and her three teenage children visited homes in their own neighbourhood - the Capital Hill district, just south of Glenora.

In January, the home visitors hand-delivered a letter from the Oblate mission team to all registered Catholics in each zone. Now they are hand-delivering the mission schedule to the same people.

"We talk to everyone if we can," Kirwin explained. "We ring the doorbell twice or even three times, but if they are not home we leave the letter in the mailbox. It's not a pastoral visit in that we don't want to come across as being more religious than the homeowner.

"We are just representatives of the parish and we are hoping that a familiar face and a smile might encourage people to come to the mission."

Oblate missions

In recent years there have been Oblate missions at Annunciation, Good Shepherd and St. Joseph's Basilica parishes in Edmonton.

"Most of our visits were very positive," Kirwin said. "In my neighbourhood I met a lot of familiar faces, people that I had seen at church but maybe didn't know their name. I also met lots of people that I had never seen at church before."

Responses varied. "I would say that many were enthusiastic, some were curious and interested and some were clearly just politely taking the letter," Kirwin laughed.

"(But) even if we facilitate the return of just a few parishioners to the Church, a few Catholics back to the faith, this whole effort would have been worthwhile."

Catherine Douglas, who coordinates the mission on behalf of Holy Spirit Parish, estimates 90 per cent of those visited reacted positively to the visit.

"There are some individuals who are quite pleased that the Church has made an effort to contact them," she said. "People are generally glad to see us."

From March 20 to 25, members of the Oblate mission team will make a third home visit, but this time they will be doing pastoral work, Kirwin noted. "They are there to bless the homes if the homeowner wishes, to talk about difficulties if there are any, to answer questions, to pray with the homeowner."

Listening centres

The mission will also feature small prayer groups or listening centres in each of the zones. The listening centres will be held in the evening at a home and will include Scripture reading, prayers, songs and discussion. "The idea is to get people together talking about their faith," Douglas said.

The mission will also feature Behold the Lamb, a group of young Catholic evangelists from Radway. They will visit all eight Catholic schools in the St. John/Holy Spirit Parish between March 8 and 22.

St. John and Holy Spirit parishes, which combined have about 1,200 families, have been working together since they were twinned about three years ago. Kirwin said the mission has brought the parishes closer together.

"Because of this mission we are really getting to know each other and it's a good thing because we are becoming increasingly cooperative with each others' programs," she said.

Douglas hopes the mission will lead to the spiritual renewal of both parishes and their members.

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