September Newsletter is hot off the press!
The arrival of September and harvest time signals a new season of the year and for many of us another season of back to routine after the long sunny Summer days spent on various family outings or adventures. Autumn also signifies a change. We see it in the colours around us on crisp September mornings. Many of us yearn for an Indian Summer – those unexpected warm September days that often take us by surprise. Autumn in many ways feels like nature sweeping away the old to bring on a new season. As we look forward to another Autumn and Winter it is with hope and expectation.
Our 10th gathering of the Grandparents’ Faith Café
The CGA has had the most extraordinary year with so many gifts and moments to savour, especially the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. We have also just celebrated our 10th Grandparents’ Faith Café and we must always be looking forward to how we can continue to grow the Catholic Grandparents’ Association. Our dream remains the same as it was from the very beginning – to have a Grandparents’ Ministry in every parish. We will continue to support Grandparents and Parishes especially in a post-pandemic world to work together to offer encouragement and support for grandparents and elders in a parish setting. With that in mind we are holding our first ever Grandparents’ Ministry Seminar we are inviting Grandparents and those working in parish pastoral ministries to join us online on Tuesday 28 September (see more inside the newsletter).
Come home to Mass
I would also like to encourage Grandparents to come home to Mass this Autumn. We Grandparents need to lead by example and encourage people back to Mass. We have been blessed by our domestic Churches and the ability to participate in Mass from our armchairs. But as people of faith we are all about community and communion, we are all about gathering. It’s time for us to change from being temporary armchair Catholics to come back to Church. May God continue to bless the efforts of all of you involved in ministry and outreach to Grandparents at this time.
In this month’s newsletter we feature a report on the wonderful Grandparents’ Faith Café gatherings that we held in July, August and earlier this month. We also feature some of the photos of the ‘Plant A Tree in Their Memory’ and we extend an invitation to you to join us for our first ever Ministry Seminar on Tuesday 28 September.
Please do pass this newsletter on to friends and colleagues or ask them to subscribe to it. Happy reading of this month’s issue from all of us in the CGA!
Catherine Wiley,
Founder, Catholic Grandparents Association