Page 10 - The Portal magazine - June 2024

THE P RTAL June 2024 Page 10

catch a mass”, it may be at the significantly. The people of
cathedral or another parish. the parish are invited to work
At Most Precious Blood, out what to give according to
there are also the people who some guidelines very much
work in the city, so they’ll emphasising proportional
come to the lunchtime mass, giving. Watch the video to see
or those who come to meet those!
their friends, or visit Borough
Market: they come to mass Fr Christopher summed up,
only on a weekday. “One or two called to say ‘I
saw your appeal, I had no idea,
He had the idea of making the I’d like to make a donation.’
videos for them and sending Some were four figure sums!”
them via email. As far as the
videos were concerned, these Having gone through some
were made up of the salient five years of fundraising and
points in the homily. He planning the consecration of
laughed as he told me that the the restored Church in 2019
video presentations probably had been a real high-point.
had a bigger “reach” than the The regular income was good,
Sunday mass presentations! the capital appeals had been
Looking them up, I discovered well-supported and then
they had each clocked-up over four hundred views. Covid hit in 2020 and brought so many things to a halt
but capital projects and repairs needed to continue.
Fr Christopher made the point that the videos are With the ensuing financial and cost of living pressures
pushing at an open door. You have to click on them the time never seemed right to ask the congregation to
and want to see them, whereas people at mass on review their giving.
Sunday take it as part of the package.
The appeal wasn’t just about money, even though the
The people, the clergy, and all involved at church bills must be paid. It was also an appeal for time and
are not there to make money. He was worried as he talent. There are many highly skilled professionals in
prepared the first talk: worried about what he was the parish, and they were invited to pledge that for the
going to say on Sunday morning and wondering if he gospel. And as busy as people are, they were asked to
should go ahead with it. In fact, he had three sleepless give time, one of the most valuable commodities they
Saturday nights thinking “Why have I got to do this? have. There is now a Caritas Group, a Rosary Group, a
Finance isn’t my area, I’m not good at this.” Charismatic prayer group, a Young Adult study group,
additional choir members and Fund Raising group
The diocesan advice was, it has to be from the priest who are collecting ‘nearly new’ for distribution to
because he is the man in authority. The only things those who need, or to sell to raise funds either at the
from the Chairman of the finance committee was to street market or on eBay.
talk about were the practicalities, standing orders,
tax efficient and regular giving, gift aid and filling Fr Christopher explains that as a priest it’s almost
forms, and those kinds of things. Of course, he also impossible to tell if people are responding to the call to
introduced other members of the Finance Committee holiness. Priests try to convince their people to love the
so that there were several points of contact. Lord; to convince them that the Gospel is true; to ask
folk, “Will you be a disciple of Jesus?” Of course, until
Has it been successful? It’s too early to say, however the Kingdom comes you never know. Priests can never
the signs are very encouraging. Some people set tell, nor perhaps should they know. So his main worry
up standing orders straight away, which he finds for the campaign was that there would be no response,
humbling; and some have already given or pledged a stark indication that the preaching and teaching had
significant amounts. fallen on deaf ears. As it transpired, nothing could be
further from the truth.
All that was asked for was a pledge. Just a pledge. This
meant the parish could plan for the future. Amounts Thank you Fr Christopher. We are glad that you seem
were not mentioned in the campaign, however the to have avoided the car crash! www.preciousblood.
faithful were asked to give regularly, sufficiently, and org.uk/giving