Parish Pastoral Council

I'm sure some parishioners are curious about what the rather grandly titled Parish Pastoral Councillors actually do at their meetings. If I wasn't on the Council, I would be wondering the same thing myself. So I thought I'd report here from now on on our monthly meetings to give people an idea of the kind of matters we discuss. This won't be a transcript of the minutes, but rather a summary of the main topics.

The current members of the PPC (2009-2012) are:

• Clergy: Fr Enda Cunningham, PP (President); Fr Aidan Kieran, CC; Fr Michael McGowan, PC
• Parish Sister: Margaret Deegan
• Parish Pastoral Worker: Sean O'Rourke
• Representatives from the Three Parish Areas:

Saggart: Sally Dungan, Mary Lawless, Donal McMahon,
John Purcell (Finance Committee)
Rathcoole: Pat Corcoran (Chairperson), Cait Jacob (Secretary), John Keaney,
Carmel Kenny, Ann Mulvany
Brittas: Michael Monahan, Patricia Redmond

The idea for a website of some kind was first proposed by Fr Michael (Shortall) at a meeting in mid-2009. He said he could only help out when he could, owing to pressure of work. Donal McMahon then volunteered to help out and, with the technical help of former Rathcoole resident, Ruairi O hAilin, got this blog going in early 2010. This is an example of a PPC initiative from proposal to implementation, with the result that you see here -- far from perfect though it be.

Another, more recent, success story has been the work devoted to maintaining the parish grave-yard. It was a group of ordinary parishioners (and not primarily the PPC) who got this going. Thanks to their efforts the graveyard looked lovely for this summer's Cemetery Sunday Mass on the 3rd July.

Committee/Council work, as we all know, is often slow and tedious. There may be a long wait between the proposal and the carrying out of it. Many people in this parish do voluntary work for the Community Council, the various charity and sporting organisations etc., and well done to them all. The PCC is another such grouping where clergy and laity work together to further (how can I put this plainly and simply?) our common pursuit of a divinely promised goal ('the coming of the kingdom', 'the building up of the Body of Christ' etc, in more religious language). I suppose it all comes down in the end to simply doing something for people, being of service. And that's what we're here for, after all, isn't it?

So much, then, by way of announcing the account to be given here from now on of the main topics of the monthly Pastoral Council meeting.

Donal, Web Sec and PPC member.