P ASTORAL CARE OF ALL THE FAITHFUL OF THE H OLY T RINITY PARISH

The nature of the office of Holy Trinity parish requires a serious pastoral arrangement from the its pastor as a shepherd, to see to the spiritual welfare and sustenance of the flock that falls to his disposition. The complexity of his office necessitates many schedules like, schedule of basic pastoral works, schedule of division of labor, schedule of demand and supply of pastoral potentials, scale of preference of activities, schedule of Eucharistic acts, schedule of evangelical works and preaching, schedule of charity actions, and care of the sick, etc. Being a religious, he should also employ a schedule of application apostolates of the Order. That is, he should draw a plan of his pastoral works. To achieve this, he has to involve the members of the parish so that his teachings, governance and work of sanctification would directly get to the targeted people. Among the outlined obligations in pastoral care, he should pay more emphasis on the following below:

3.1.1 Celebration of Holy Mass

Both the Old and New Testament (as in the sacrifice of Jesus the High Priest also) consider priests firstly from the point of offering sacrifice of thanksgiving, praise, reconciliation and petition to God on behalf of the people. This function always makes the person and duty of priests to be unique in the society from age to age. A pap tehát szolgájaként Krisztusnál

375 See c. 678, §2.

376 See c 517, §1.

377 Canon 520, §1.

378 See c. 678, §§ 1 and 3.

181 kevesebbként, a népnél azonban többként lép az oltár elé.³⁷⁹ With this grace, his presence in the community of faithful assures spiritual nourishment from the Body of Christ who commands that the offering of bread and wine as His Body and Blood on the Last Super should be kept as testament until He comes again. The current law in force compels that:

“after a pastor has taken possession of his parish, he is obliged to apply a Mass for the flock entrusted to him on each Sunday and holy day of obligation in his diocese (c. 534,

§1).”

This sole function is always carried out adequately by pastors of Holy Trinity parish. It applies to Sundays, feasts and other weekdays as well. The Mass intention of the pastor of a parish should firstly be to offer the problems, joys and sorrows, good wills, petitions and supplications, and he should do it as an obligation on Sundays and holy days of obligations guided by the diocesan calendar. Because of the intimate connection between the celebration of the Blessed Eucharist and the parish community, this obligation of the pastor on celebration of Holy Mass is never delegated, unless if for a just cause the pastor is restricted or impeded from completing it, otherwise, he should apply the Masses for the people on the same days through another person or on other days himself. In such situations for example, when other stations and Mass centers such as St. Joseph the worker church of Városföld and Marian Chapel (both are around Kecskemét) were entrusted the Holy Trinity parish to pastorally cover-up, the pastors of those times applied only one Mass for the entire people under his care (see §2 of the same canon).³⁸⁰ This obligation extends to - though as mere responsibility - those Masses which members of the parish faithful requested to be applied for any reason, - their diseased and living members, private intentions, etc. -, on other days of the week or other Holy Masses of Sundays. These should neither be omitted for any reason, though they could be applied by any other priest who is helping in the parish. This situation becomes more interesting when a parish has both a pastor and a parochial administrator.

As outlined in canon 539, there are situations in which the bishop is required to appointment of a parochial administrator who would exercise the same functions as the pastor (though with few limitations),³⁸¹ such as, if the pastor is in captive, or exiled, or

379 XII. PIUSZ, Mediator Dei, Liturgia, AAS 39 (1947. november 20.) 528-580, in DENZINGER, H. – HÜNERMAN, P., Hitvallások és az Egyház Tanítóhivatalának megnyilatkozásai, 753 .

380 From time to time, the following parishes were entrusted to be covered-up by the priests in Holy Trinity parish due to one reason or the other: Lajosmizse, Nagykőrös, Szentkirály, Koháriszentlőrinc, Kiskunfélegyháza, Helvécia, Hetényegyháza, and Mintelek.

381 Canon 540, §§ 1-2.

182 banned, ill or other causes like that.³⁸² According to legislator, the diocesan bishop should designate a parochial vicar to save the situation, so that the sheep would not be left without shepherd. If such situation arises, the bishop is to decide (or if better, both of them can decide among themselves) whether the pastor or the parochial administrator is to carry out the obligation of applying Mass for the people. Whatever might be the case, the venue of this Mass must be the parish church and its obligation should never be entrusted to another person to be applied in another place. Two important things are to be deduced from these explanations. Firstly, whoever applies this Mass should never take any stipend for it even if he has other two Masses to apply on the same day, however, with regard to the instructions of the local ordinary. Secondly, that these Holy Masses offered by the pastor and his substituting priests are territorially limited to the parish of the faithful. As a result of this, even if this Mass is applied by another person, it can be done only on Sundays and on other days of obligations in the diocese at that parish church.

For the fact that we are dealing with the condition surrounding a religious pastor, we must always add the peculiarities proper to his statute. Within religious communities, houses and monasteries, the assignment of Masses (together with time and venue of applying them) to every clerical member fall under the authority of the superior. Here we could suppose difficulties in the case of the pastor if really the superior is to decide which Mass he should apply. This problem is always solved by exempting the pastor from this precepts and influence of the superior so that he can be able to apply Masses for the faithful belonging to the parish. An example of this was when Sándor Sík (the provincial) allowed the pro populo Holy Masses applied by dr. István Erős (vice pastor of the Holy Trinity parish of Kecskemét), to be counted as ad. int. prov.³⁸³ That is, he exempted him from the obligations of applying the ad. int. prov. Masses for the benefit of the faithful of the parish. Therefore, it is quite obvious why Szuromi insisted that, if a religious priest is the proper pastor of the parish, the relationship between the pastoral work of the parish entrusted to him and the apostolate of his religious community nem melléreldeltségi (coordinating), hanem aláreldeltségi (subordinating) kapcsolatban vannak egymással.³⁸⁴ This exemption does not alter the statutes of the religious pastor for been subjected to the authority of the superior (as

382 This obligation aims at pointing to the intentions of the Masses being said by the pastors of this parish.

Generally, a priest is to apply Masses for the intentions already buked by the faithful. Otherwise, if there is no special request for a given Mass, the priest who celebrates the Mass is free to choose his Mass intention..

383 PIARISTA REND MAGYAR TARTOMÁNY KÖZPONTI LEVÉLTÁRA, Hivatalos levelezés, Kecskemét 1948, 1536/1948.

384 SZUROMI, SZ. A., A szerzetesi és szerzetesrendre bízott plébániákra vonatkozó hatályos egyházfegyelmi előírások vázlata, 237.

183 requested by c. 678, §2), who nominated him to this office, rather it aims at prioritizing the salus animarum of the faithful which is the main goal of the endeavors of the Mother Church.

3.1.2 Catechism and homily

The pastors of the Holy Trinity parish are known for their well utilizing of both catechism classes and homilies as forums of teaching and strengthening the faithful in their everyday Christian lives. Their apostolate as teaching the youth is an added advantage, therefore every of their pastors are enriched with a lot of experiences and knowledge on how to teach the children and the youths, speaking in youth’s language, so that they can understand the Word of God and teachings of the Church. As we have pointed out earlier on, a pastor is the proper teacher to his flock, he exercises this right through given adequate, proper and sound preaching during the Sunday homilies, conduction of catechism classes both at the parish and in schools for the youths, organizing seminars, symposiums, congresses and lectures for the faithful and arranging retreats for the parishioners especially during advents and Lenten seasons. The legislator commands: “He is to have particular care for the Catholic education of children and youth.”³⁸⁵ The Vatican Council II calls this forum a

“sacred right” among the youths and the children and advises that all who participate in their education should adhere to it, especially the parents who gave lives to their offspring.³⁸⁶ Therefore this holy Synod reminds pastors of souls of their acutely duty to make every effort to see that all the faithful enjoy a Christian education of this sort, especially young people who are the hope of the Church.³⁸⁷ To achieve success in this aspect, the pastor should visit the parishioners frequently to know their problems, hear their complains and share in their worries, correct their failings, and encourage them in their weaknesses, and so on. The experience and information he gathers from the visitations would help him modify his homily which he addresses to the same faithful. This is the reason why it is advisable that the pastor himself says the homily whenever Masses are applied for the faithful in his parish, because he is the shepherd who knows his flock.

385 See c. 528, §1.

386 See GE 1.

387 GE 2.

184