It’s Not About Us.

The beginning of last year marked the beginning of a season of change—a recognition that some of the structures, rhythms, and assumptions that had served us well in the past would no longer carry us into the future God is opening before us. 2025 felt less like a straight line and more like a threshold. Familiar patterns have loosened their grip. Long-standing ways of doing things have been questioned, reshaped, or let go altogether. For some, this has been energising. For others, unsettling. For most, it has probably been both.

The Church has a name for this kind of moment: liminal time. It is the space between what has been and what is yet to come. Liminal seasons are rarely comfortable. They involve uncertainty, ambiguity, and a sense of being “in between.” We are no longer standing firmly in old structures, but we cannot yet see clearly the full shape of what lies ahead. And yet, this is precisely the kind of space where Jesus does some of his most important work.

In liminal times, the temptation is to rush—either to cling tightly to the past or to demand quick solutions and neat answers. But discipleship often asks something harder of us: to remain present, attentive, and faithful while the ground shifts beneath our feet; to become comfortable even, with a certain discomfort; to trust that God is not absent in the uncertainty, but active within it. What anchors us in this in-between moment is clarity of mission.

Our mission—expressed succinctly—is to be a vibrant community that actively accompanies people to encounter Jesus. As a growing parish, we are also naming with increasing confidence our purpose within that mission: to reach every single person within the geographical boundary of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish—around 150,000 people—with an invitation to choose Jesus. This statement cuts through distraction and recentres everything we do.

When a purpose greater than we can fully comprehend becomes our focus, something important happens. We stop measuring parish life primarily by internal markers such as by how smoothly things run, how familiar they feel, how well they suit those of us already here. Instead, we begin asking outward-facing questions: Who is missing? Who has never been invited? Who does not yet know Jesus, or knows him only distantly or even painfully?

Pope Francis often warned against a Church that becomes self-referential: turned inward, preoccupied with itself, and disconnected from the very people it is meant to serve. Liminal seasons force us to decide whether our energy will be spent preserving comfort or embracing mission.

The truth is confronting and freeing at the same time: our parish does not exist for itself. It exists for those who are not here yet. This is why the letting go matters. This is why the discomfort has purpose. Old structures, times, and ways of doing things are not being questioned for the sake of change itself, but because the mission now before us requires flexibility, courage, and imagination. Reaching 150,000 people will not happen overnight or by accident—it is a ten-year horizon—and it will most definitely not come from doing “more of the same.” It will take prayerful discernment, new discipleship, and a willingness to be sent beyond what feels familiar.

Every Mass reminds us of this truth. We are not simply gathered; we are commissioned. “Go, and proclaim the Gospel.” These are not closing words of housekeeping. They are a sending: into workplaces, families, schools, friendships, digital spaces, and the quiet, everyday encounters where faith is most often shared. Jesus is stretching us, widening our vision, and re-aligning us with his heart for those who do not yet know him. It’s not about us. It’s about those waiting—often unknowingly—for an invitation to meet Jesus. And it’s about becoming a parish willing to step forward into that mission, even while we are still standing on the threshold.

With prayer and love, Fr Josh