About 600 people attended a parish renewal program held over four days at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Woodlands.
The program, which was called ‘Spirituality and Me’, consisted of seven talks given by Fr Nicholas Punch OP, Fr Michael Champlin OP and Sr Joan Bukrey OSF from the Thomas More Centre for Preaching and Prayer.
It was the second time the trio have travelled from the United States to deliver the program at the parish.
Woodlands parish priest Fr Peter Nguyen said he was pleased to be able to host the program again, six years after it was first held.
“As a parish it’s a chance for all of us to be nourished,” he said.
Parish pastoral assistant Kaye Shervington said the program was well received by parishioners.
“The main thing was that the people who came kept coming back, so they must have been getting something out of it,” she said.
The stated aim of the renewal was to “invite parishioners to be active in their faith and to be connected with their community”.
The topics of the program’s talks were selected by the parish to address relevant issues for today’s Catholics.
Attendees were challenged to think about how to live out their faith in practical ways, according to parish council chairman, Kevin Susai.
“They’re not the standard off-the-shelf type of speakers,” he said.
“They want you to look at the Scriptures and get meaning out of them.”
At the final talk of the program, the speakers addressed children from the parish school preparing to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation at the weekend.
They explained how the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit imparted at Confirmation are important in daily life.
Each speaker then recalled an event in their lives that demonstrated how those gifts could manifest themselves.
“The Holy Spirit gives us all gifts and sometimes those gifts are hidden deep within us,” Sr Joan said.
Fr Nicholas said he was “thrilled” with how the program went.
“Our aim is to get people more interested in Scripture, so most of our talks are based on Scripture and the experience of our own lives,” he said.
“We want to give people a positive, not a negative, message… if one person is touched then it’s worthwhile.”
The parish has asked those who attended the talks to provide feedback which will be used to explore ways to improve such programs.
Our Lady of the Rosary parish is celebrating its 40-year anniversary in 2013.