Want to learn more about becoming a Holy Family Parishioner? Email Joyce Jelinek at jjelinek@holyfamilyparish.org
Holy Family History
In the summer of 1984, a panel of priests from the personnel board of the Archdiocese of Chicago arrived at St. Theresa’s parish hall in Palatine to talk to parishioners about the creation of a much needed new parish in the Hoffman Estates/Barrington/Inverness area.
All sorts of people (married, single, widowed, divorced, young and old) came to voice their needs, concerns and feelings about the type of pastor needed to create a new parish family. In October of 1984, Fr. Medard Laz was appointed the founding pastor. With the help of parishioners from St. Theresa, St. Anne, and St. Hubert, a new parish was born whose name was to become Holy Family.
Holy Family Parish found its first home in the cafeteria at Fremd High School, fondly known as “St. Fremd,” where the first Mass was celebrated on December 1, 1984. During the three and a half years spent at “St. Fremd,” the parish grew to over 1,300 families, and a site for a permanent home for this community began.
On May 28, 1985, 16 acres of farmland was purchased on Palatine Road, a building was designed, and more than $5 million was pledged by over 1,000 families. The original building contained 57,000 square feel of space, with more than ten miles of wiring and 31,000 square feet of carpeting. 4,000 tons of concrete were poured and 400 tons of stone surrounded the exterior. The major trusses in the worship space weigh more than 100 tons, and they can be seen through the 3,700 square feet of glass that surround the space. The first Mass was celebrated in the new space on April 30, 1988.
Today, under the leadership of Fr. Pat Brennan, over 3,700 families form the community of Holy Family Parish, and we continue to grow.
Father Pat Brennan has emphasized Evangelization
Here at Holy Family, we operate out of the convergence model of evangelization. By that I mean we have eight divisions of ministry, organizing over 140 ministries. These many ministries utilize many diverse gifts and charisms, but all of these ministries converge on one central mission, and that is the mission of evangelization. Put simply, evangelization is inviting people, in an ongoing way, to conversion, and to help with the emergence of the Reign of God. The Church exists, our parish exists, to help continue Jesus’ mission of evangelizing.
This mission of evangelization, however, needs some people to be very deliberately focused on doing primary evangelization, and a kind of reconciling evangelization. By primary evangelization we mean initial steps in inviting people who have had little faith experience to Jesus, conversion and the Reign of God. Reconciling evangelization refers to ministering to people who have been previously evangelized and churched, but perhaps have been hurt or wounded in some way in dealing with the Church. Many of the other divisions of ministry, the other seven leadership communities and the ministries within them, are doing a lot of re-evangelization. Re-evangelization is continuing to evangelize people who are certainly spiritual, faithful and Christian, but need ongoing growth in their faith. Pope Paul VI said in 1975 that the only way the Church can evangelize is if it continues to evangelize itself.
Evangelical Outreach is made up of a number of ministries. My example of the primary evangelization that this group does is the Footsteps Ministering Community. This community, for the last 23 years, has implemented the Church’s ancient Rite of the Christian Initiation of Adults. Through this process of both education and worship, children, who have reached the age of reason, through adults, who have never been baptized or have been baptized in other Christian faiths, can experience a formation process that leads them to baptism into the Church, or a profession of faith in Christ and the Church. The Footsteps Ministry is also open to those who have been baptized Catholic, but never raised Catholic, and therefore are in need of some quality faith formation.
An example of reconciling evangelization is done by the Landings process. In Landings, Catholics who have been estranged or far from the Church for some years go through a process with active Catholics of becoming reacquainted with the Church, and by being touched by the Church’s healing and pastoral ministries.
Another very exciting ministry of evangelization in this division is Reach Out. On a quarterly basis, ministers trained in telephone skills call all registered parishioners to check on their well-being, to announce upcoming events, to do need discernment, to listen for hurts or wounds that might need to be addressed by the pastoral staff. This ministry attempts also to keep our parish database updated and accurate.
At the heart of good evangelization for active Catholics, inactive Catholics, unchurched people seeking to become Catholic is the experience of community, or life-giving, faith-filled relationships. Two ministries that attempt to cast a relational net around the parish are Small Christian Communities and Neighborhood Ministry.
Small Christian Communities teach people how to meet in their homes to share faith around next weekend’s scripture readings for Mass, or selected reading materials. Some of these faith-sharing groups have also begun ministries of mercy and justice to needy people and situations in our parish or outside the parish.
Under the umbrella of Small Christian Communities is a cousin ministry, Bible Study. Bible Study groups attract many different kinds of people who have been awakened to a hunger and a thirst for God’s revelation as found in scripture. Another cousin is Image Groups, which are reunion groups for people who have gone through the renewing experience of Marriage Encounter, an intense skills-building experience. in the context of faith, for married couples.
Our parish is divided into 20 neighborhoods or regions. Each of our neighborhoods has a parishioner overseer or leader who provides mentoring and encouragement to many neighborhood representatives or ministers. These people try, on a regular basis, to communicate with their neighbors, people who are also members of Holy Family. Again, the focus is on need discernment, especially pastoral care needs for sick people who might be shut in. Neighborhood representatives also try to facilitate the hosting of a neighborhood Mass or liturgy, as well as a social event, at least once a year. Neighborhood Ministry tries to communicate that all are welcome. Neighborhood Ministry also sponsors some parish-based social events, which invite all types of people into contact with the parish.
Also under the umbrella of Evangelical Outreach is our Radio, TV and Internet Ministries. The parish sponsors a radio program that is heard on two stations in the metropolitan area, WIND (560AM) at 6:30 Sunday morning and WYLL (1160AM) at 11:00 Sunday morning. Our radio program is televised in 60 suburbs via Comcast Cable Network at differing times on Tuesday afternoons. Similarly, we have a Mass on TV at varying times on Sundays. Many communities pick it up at 1:00 PM.
An exciting new world for us is our beginning of an Internet radio station called The Stream, which contains our current radio programs, as well as some preaching and adult formation events. We hope that this will expand to many different kinds of programs, which also can be experienced on peoples’ iPods.
Our emerging Multi-Cultural Ministry is seeking to use our Saturday 6:00 PM Mass, on occasion, to offer worship experiences with definite ethnic, cultural emphases. Our initial offerings will be a Polish Mass, a Spanish Mass, and a Celtic Mass. This is an attempt to make people of various ethnic backgrounds feel welcome, and to inculturate the gospel in various beautiful racial and ethnic cultures.
There are many other ministries within this leadership community. I hope that this part of our website helps you to understand, and perhaps to become involved in this most important aspect of Holy Family ministry, which is Evangelical Outreach.
In Jesus,
Pat Brennan
Pastor
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