New Plan Activated for SCC in Midnapore Deanery.

 FR. DOMINIC GOMES VG 

On 21st and 22nd March 2022, 51 Parish Coordinators, Animators and veteran members of Small Christian Communities from 11 Parishes participated in a residential workshop held as a part of the ongoing process of SCC growth in Midnapore Deanery. Last year on 19-20 October an SCC Orientation workshop was conducted for over 60 participants who had gone back with very detailed parish action plans. Unfortunately the Christmas season that was followed by Covid 2nd Wave restrictions in January 2022 slowed things down considerably.  In mid-February Fr. Dominic Gomes, Vicar General visited Kharagpur and had a very fruitful meeting with Fr. Reginald Fernandez Dean of Midnapore and other parish priests and SCC coordinators with a very significant outcome – 13 Parishes and Sub-stations in the Deanery were clustered into six different Zones primarily based on the proximity of the Parishes and six Priests were each given charge to guide SCC in the Parishes in these six Zones. 

Barring two parishes who had Lenten Retreats on 21-22 March, it was attended by all those who had participated in the October workshop where the 4-Marks of SCC based on the 4 pillars of One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church were explained in detail and 7-Step Gospel Sharing was elaborately demonstrated in group work and interactive sessions. This workshop was held in the backdrop of the re-formed SCC operational structure with the purpose of providing advanced inputs on re-vitalising SCCs through a systematic growth plan focusing on family participation.

As always the program started with a Solemn Bible procession and enthronement. The three lessons of focus for this workshop were - God’s plan for marriage and family; Forgiveness and handling conflict with love in the family; and SCCs Evangelize family. The methodology followed was fully participatory as the participants worked in four groups first reading aloud the inputs, accompanying Bible readings, and Church Teachings from the three lessons material in English, Bengali and Hindi, and then after reflection and discussions based on the questions provided with the lessons the groups prepared and presented their reports. Different members of the Diocesan Resource Team (DRT) facilitated each step of the process, and provided supplementary learning inputs at the end of the reporting sessions for the three lessons.

On the second day (Sunday) Holy Mass was celebrated by Fr. Dominic Gomes and concelebrated by Fr. Reginald Fernandes Dean of Midnapore. The concluding part focused on a stock taking-cum-planning exercise with 10 parishes setting up immediate targets of what they would do till the end of April 2022. This session was led by Fr. Reggie who has been constantly following up with the Priests designated to the six newly formed Zones and his enthusiasm has imparted a great impetus to the SCC growth efforts in the Deanery. The reports of the Parish after a round of discussion and planning in group.

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