As true disciples and good stewards, we are committed to uphold the virtues of faith, hope and love of Christ among His people. We receive God’s gifts gratefully through prayer and worship, focused on thanksgiving. We cultivate His gifts responsibly through formation and education, focused on learning how to be better stewards and disciples. We share our gifts lovingly and in justice when we share them with others, especially the less fortunate; and we return them with increase to the Lord by giving adequately to the Lord’s instrument here on earth, our Church.
(See US Conference of Catholic Bishops: Pastoral Letter on Stewardship).
“The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us'” (CCC, 1322-1324) We are a Eucharistic community that believes the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our faith in Jesus. Our worship of Christ in the Mass nourishes, nurtures, and centers our community in His Life and Love.
We use the gifts God has given us in the service of His People. We cultivate these gifts responsibly through the formation and in the education of the faith, teaching us how to be better stewards and disciples. We believe, as disciples and good stewards, in Life-long Faith Formation. We value the need for all persons of all ages and circumstances to grow in knowledge, love, and service of Christ and His Church.
We share our gifts lovingly and in justice when we share them with all God’s people, especially to those most in need. We are a welcoming community of His People and invite them to participate fully in His Family, the Church. We pray and work in the hope that God will lift up new priests, religious, and lay ministers from among us to serve His Church and the needs of all peoples in our midst.
We remember that the Lord has given us all that we have and are. We are temporary caretakers of His gifts to us. During our lifetime, our Lord is asking us to return these gifts with an increase-and we do it most appropriately by giving both financially and volunteering in a planned, proportionate, sacrificial, and thankful way to our Church. We cultivate our community in the soil of good works and generous giving, and so believe that, as Jesus promised, we will be blessed “thirty, sixty, a hundredfold” (See Mark 10:30).
As we strive to build the Kingdom of God as one family of faith in Weymouth and Braintree, in fellowship with Christ and with one another, the collaborative of Sacred Heart and Saint Thomas More parishes will become one community of believers much like that of the first Apostles, a community that:
• shares all that we have and all that we are in service to Christ and one another;
• forms intentional disciples, who live out their vocations in joy, faith, hope, and love;
• proclaims and lives the Gospel of Jesus Christ so as to draw others closer to Him;
• lives a sacramental life, centered on the Eucharist, worshiping and praising God with gratitude and love.