News

An Update From The OLW Parish Pastoral Council

On behalf of the entire Parish Pastoral Council, we hope you and your families had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! We have a lot to be thankful for gifts and blessings the Lord has given us all!

I wanted to follow up briefly on the recent Priests Placement Board town hall meeting held at OLW on November 6. Thank you for all those who made it to the session to share your thoughts on OLW with the Board. For those who attended, the Monsignor laid out the process for selecting a new Pastor. For those who did not, below is a synopsis of the process.

• Priests Placement Board will take all the feedback from the Parishes and compile a Parish Profile, which will be shared with prospective pastors.
• Prospective priests review this information, discern, and identify parishes they believe they would be a good match. The Board will then conduct interviews with candidates to determine their eligibility and fit. Presumably, candidates will identify OLW as one of their choices.
• After formal prayer and weeks of discernment, in the spring (March) the Board will make recommendations to Bishop Rojas and Cardinal Cupich as to which priest they recommend for the pastorship at Our Lady of the Wayside. Cardinal Cupich will make the final decision and it is he who will appoint the pastor.
• The new pastor would assume his duties on or about July 1, 2020.

As you can see, this is a pretty formal process!

At the town hall, the Monsignor identified all the positives we have here at OLW – we are a very passionate, talented, involved congregation with a great future! We are the ones that will carry the greatness of OLW forward! We all should be thankful for what a great parish we have!

As a board, we will continue to provide updates as any information is shared. In the meantime, these are a couple thoughts we wish to share.

The most important thing we can do is to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit during the pastor assignment process. Please pray for the priests pursuing pastorate assignments, pray for Fr. Winters and our current priests, Fr. Vinod and Fr. Brady, pray for the Placement Board, and most importantly, pray for each other! It’s in God’s hands!

The Monsignor made one excellent point. He said that no one person defines a parish. No matter how wonderful a pastor might be it really is WE who are the Parish. During this time of transition, take the time to reflect on your own role in the parish. If you would like to see the parish be better or different or take a greater lead some-where, think about your role and how the Holy Spirit may be quietly asking you to serve here at Wayside. Please pray about this. Almost every ministry is in need of new members. We really are the hands and face of Christ to one another.

God Bless.

Bud Trunk
Parish Pastoral Council Chairperson