Food For Faith made it to the Press this morning offering a comment on the unprecedented opportunity Bishop Martin is giving Christchurch Catholics to be a part of springtime of faith in the diocese.

Ascension
Most people think of the Ascension of Jesus as being a ‘departure’ moment. Jesus was here and now he is gone. We imagine Jesus going up into the clouds and the disciples waving farewell from below.
This is an unhelpful image.
It is essential that we understand what does happen and what does not happen in the Ascension event.
It would be easy to wrongly think that in his ministry showed us how to build the city of God on earth, and now he has gone and the mission is left to us.
In this regeneration priests are challenged by the bishop and parishioners “to be priests of Jesus Christ focused on their first calling as doctors of the soul, giving their time not to building maintenance and financial administration but to the celebration of Mass and the sacraments, living among the people with time to visit and chat, providing in their parish churches a refuge, a sanctuary of peace and prayer for busy parishioners and for anyone who might drop in”.
This paragraph struck a chord. Given that most parishes have only one priest, is there opportunity for lay people to provide business ministry and free up the priest to focus on spiritual ministry?