Pastoral Areas Liturgy Support (PALS) has had a flying start with the completion of a six week course at the Wellington Catholic Education Centre. Fr John Greally, who ran the course, developed PALS to better enable the ordained and laity to work together on liturgy. He knows that all the wisdom does not reside in one person and liturgy is much richer when planned as part of a well formed team.
Marianne Callaghan from Sacred Heart parish Petone is one of around 30 participants who attended the six-week course. She has been involved in liturgy preparation for about 40 years so came to PALS with a great deal of experience.
Marianne is a gifted musician and it was through music that she came to liturgy. Marianne found the course well worth the effort of travelling to Wellington in some atrocious weather.
She had been involved in minimal liturgical formation in the past and found the course a wonderful confirmation of what she had already been doing.
One of the strengths of gathering together was the small group sharing that teased out some of the input. Marianne has come away feeling more confident and enthused with a greater understanding of why we do the things we do. She feels many gaps in her knowledge have been closed and looks forward to the rest of the formation that will take place over three weekends in 2009.
On the final night of the course when Archbishop John Dew presented each PALS participant with some liturgical resources he said he looked forward to experiencing even greater liturgies in the archdiocese in the coming years.