Moving Forward Together as the Haven of Mercy Catholic Community

After a Lenten season spent somewhat apart, the parishes that constitute our new six-parish Area Catholic Community came together for the first time to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday.

“Divine Mercy Sunday brought us together, and considering the fact that our name is Haven of Mercy, this was the perfect day for it,” says Fr. Ben Kociemba. “We were able to celebrate at St. James in Randall and also had confessions, adoration and the Divine Mercy Chaplet.”

In recent months, our faith community has taken several steps towards the creation of a new Area Catholic Community including the development of a new logo.

“We’re in that process of coming together, and the Haven of Mercy Catholic Community we’re looking forward to working with three more parishes,” Fr. Ben says. “We had over 40 submissions of different logos, and it was difficult to decide upon one. Now it is on our weekly bulletin.”

Between July and this coming fall, there are also several action steps on which we’ll be moving forward, ranging from considering a unified curriculum and approach, to religious education, to a shared website and consolidated bulletin.

“The focus is on becoming more organized and efficient together so that we can better serve people’s needs,” Fr. Ben says.

Regarding religious education, we hope to have more opportunities for young people and for families to share food and fellowship, and to be active in their faith lives.

“We’re looking to move even more toward a family-based model for religious education that really involves the whole family,” Fr. Ben says. “We’d like to get the youth involved with liturgy, ministries, Totus Tuus, mission trips and the Steubenville conferences.”

Fr. Ben and Fr. Jimmy Joseph, the Pastor of the other tri-parish area Catholic community, have already begun celebrating Mass at their different parishes, and in the future, they’ll consider what it would look like to have a plan of worship for weekends and weekdays as a six-parish community.

“We’re looking at the possibilities of working together on our worship plan,” Fr. Ben says. “Similarly, we’ll try to find a way to bring our Parish Council together.”

With the coming developments regarding religious education and business, the community will ultimately consider having a full-time youth minister and business manager.

“Having a business manager to handle the business items would be invaluable,” Fr. Ben says. “As far as business work, we’re looking at having the same phone systems, software systems, website, event calendar and bulletins. We also need to decide how to share the costs of shared programs.”

As we move forward in prayer together, Fr. Ben would like to thank everyone from the faith community for their ongoing support and stewardship.

“Thank you for your openness to what God has in plan for us!” says Fr. Ben. “This really is our openness to doing God’s will as directed by the bishop, and it’s important that we be about the mission of God’s work.”

If you would like more information about Haven of Mercy and upcoming developments, please reach out to Fr. Ben Kociemba at lfpastortriparish@gmail.com or 320-247-8878.

Celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday as the Haven of Mercy Catholic Community