St. Peter’s Parish is a communion of communities, small neighbourhood groups which form the grassroots of the Parish. The stated mission was, “Building a Faith Community for Service”. The early Christian communities described in the Acts, were our inspiration. In Mumbai, Bishop Bosco Penha was the pioneer, inspired by the Latin American Basic Christian Communities of the 1970s.
The first ‘Bombay Priests Synod’ in 1980 decided to start these communities. Every Parish in the Archdiocese was divided into Small Christian Communities. By 1986 twenty six parishes started these. St. Peter’s was one of the first parishes to implement the SCCs. Our Parish functions through 14 Communities, each named after a Patron Saint. With a greater awareness of our responsibility in building the Kingdom of God, for the last 3 years we work towards being more inclusive in our approach and we have adopted the name Small Human Communities, as suggested by the Archdiocese. The SHCs make efforts at “building bridges of understanding and common action with people of all faith and culture”. Our mission has been amended to, “Building Human Community with people of other faith and culture”.
Each community has a Core Group consisting of a Coordinator and a number of Animators depending on the size of the community, together with a Priest and Sister. The Coordinators form a part of the Parish Pastoral Council. After the monthly Parish Pastoral Council meeting, the Core Group meeting takes place in each community, starting with bible sharing, the reading of the Minutes of the PPC meeting and a discussion on action to be taken. The Animators are expected to have a meeting of their Cluster Families and follow the same procedure. Feedback from the Core Group and community is brought back to the next PPC meeting. This procedure helps the entire Parish to be a Communion of Communities.
The SHC Coordinators prepare quarterly reports of the activities conducted in the community and submit to Sr. Sumitra. The individual reports and a collated report are sent to the Archdiocesan SCC Office.
The Steering Committee is the operational arm of the SHC Project in the Parish. The role of the Steering Committee is to guide the progress of the movement and it meets at least four times a year. If the PPC is ‘the heart of the Parish’ the Steering Committee is ‘the heart of the heart, the core of the Parish.’
The goal of the Christian community, especially of its animators, is to “animate” – to bring to life, the various gifts and talents of the members of the community through spiritual, cultural, social and outreach activities. The goal is also to meet every need in the community.
There are various Training Programmes organized at the Parish, Deanery and Archdiocesan level. The Animators, Coordinators and other potential leaders are encouraged to take advantage of these programmes so that they are better equipped to be more effective in their ministry. Four of our SHC leaders were participants at the 3-day Western Region SCCs Convention held at Vasai in October 2019 and were the only representatives of the Bandra Deanery.
St. Peter’s, as a Jesuit Parish, for the last 10 years, had four major areas of action: Justice, Inculturation, Inter-Religious Dialogue and Ignatian Spirituality. From September 2019 the Society of Jesus has chosen 4 Universal Apostolic Preferences for the coming 10 years, which the Parish will make its own:
To show the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment;
To walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice;
To accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future;
To collaborate in the care of our Common Home.
I would like to joyfully acknowledge community activities like: Community recollections, recitation of the Rosary, participation in the Stations of the Cross during Lent, carol singing at Christmas, visiting the House-bound of the area, a yearly pilgrimage to Mount Mary’s, contributing articles to the parish bulletin, distributing the Parish Bulletins and Community Fund envelopes, prayer meetings as support to a bereaved family, assistance at the funeral so that the family members do not feel alone in their hour of sorrow, an Inter-Faith Prayer Service every 26th January, taking part in the local ALM, keeping in touch with the local Corporator, attending BMC meetings, working for solutions to problems like hawkers invading the footpaths, blocked gutters and drainage, traffic congestion, water problems etc. Every community organizes a Get-together or Picnic for its community members and an Easter Eucharistic celebration in the locality. Distribution of financial aid to needy students and of medical assistance to those in need is also facilitated. Finally, outreach programmes like visits to the Clergy Home or Emily Care, an orphanage or home for the differently abled, assisting Ashagad through Food Stalls on Mission Sunday are also undertaken. Inter-community programmes are also encouraged, bringing together a larger number of people in the area. The vibrancy of our Parish Small Human Communities is something we are grateful to God for and to so many who contribute to making these communities, the locus for evangelization.
Representative at the Archdiocese: Glenn D’Silva
Coordinator: Sr. Yvonne Rodrigues FC
Priest-in-Charge: Fr. Luke Rodrigues SJ.