God is the source and centre of our human existence and continues to hold all creation in love. We are called and invited to respond to God’s love by becoming missionary disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, who with the Holy Spirit, inspires and animates us towards ‘the transcendence of discipleship and towards the transcendence of mission’. This requires bold humility and zeal for the faith lived out in our daily lives and within our local contexts, witnessing to our personal encounter of the living God.
To live in God’s love for us compels us to go out and serve, especially in places “where you don’t want to go” (John 21:18). A life following Jesus calls us daily to a conversion of the heart, to take up our cross and lay down anything that may hinder our capacity to receive God’s love completely.
With God’s grace, we are able to commit to a life reflecting God’s being and Trinitarian reality, that of which is a self-gift, where our individualism and self-centeredness melts away in the presence of the recognised sacredness. This sacredness in all things reminds us that everyone and everything is connected. As Mother Teresa reminds us, “we belong to one another.”
Our ever-growing secular society challenges the reality of God. We only need to look around us to notice the divisions that exist. People express their experiences of isolation, anxieties, fears and suffering. These were the stories shared through our synod process leading to our Diocesan Synod in October 2023.
In the darkness of these lived realities, the message of God who draws near and enters our humanity becomes a source of hope and opens us up to possibilities.
Members of the Diocesan community at the launch of the 2024-2028 Diocesan Pastoral Plan at Western Sydney Conference Centre, Penrith. Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta
Our response to these real experiences of our people needs to be authentic accompaniment and concrete action that makes God’s love known, not as some vague and lofty idea. Rather, it is love lived out through us, through our service to others and our unreserved witness of a personal relationship with Jesus in a world crying out for meaning and purpose.
This is the vision of our Synodal Church in the Diocese of Parramatta. It is a vision that is orientated towards becoming a Church that is not only for the poor (mission) but is poor (structural). In this way, we realise that the Church doesn’t have a mission, but rather God’s mission has a Church – us. This is grounded by the life and example of Jesus who sought out those who are forgotten and unseen.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus encounters those who society deems the last, the least and the lost: the Woman at the Well (John 4:1-42), the Blind Man (Mark 8:22-25) and Zacchaeus, the Tax Collector (Luke 19:1-10). Here we appreciate the Holy Spirit’s movement in the universal Church today, which invites us to draw all in communion with God, where no one is left behind and no one is excluded from the love that God gives freely.
It is a vision that honours and encourages the baptismal call of every person, calling us forward united in mission. To live united, with our differences, witnesses to the Body of Christ and the power of God’s mercy capable of inspiring reconciliation and healing within us and between us. Pope Francis exhorts that “there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus.”
Qwayne Guevara explains the 2024-2028 Diocesan Pastoral Plan during its launch at Western Sydney Conference Centre, Penrith. Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta
St Paul, a model of conversion and mission, reminds us with great conviction that this is possible, for we know “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
As a pilgrim Church, together, we look forward to the realisation of God’s beatific vision for all of humanity, a vision beyond our imagination and comprehension. Until then, we choose to participate more fully in the life of our Church today.
Just like Jesus drew near and walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we courageously commit to listening to the Holy Spirit, nurturing our relationship with Jesus through prayer and worship, and allowing ourselves to be thrust into mission, cultivating our God-given creativity to respond to the needs of the people of God in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains.
We build on our synodal journey and continue to move forward together. Our Pastoral Plan expresses the call to ongoing renewal, both personal and institutional, and offers a practical framework that elevates every person’s baptismal call to communion, participation and mission in the local contexts of our parishes, schools and agencies, as a priority for the Church in these times.
We take heart, trusting in God who loves us unconditionally and without limits, allowing the words of Jesus Christ to echo in our hearts – “Behold, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).
We invite you to read, reflect upon, and share this important document with your local community.
Qwayne Guevara was the Lead Facilitator for the Diocesan Synod process and Manager – Catholic Youth Parramatta in the Diocese of Parramatta’s Mission Enhancement Team. She is currently studying a Master in Arts in Theology and Ministry at Boston College, USA.
