In the new pastoral year, I encourage each of us to take root ever more firmly in the Church through active participation, in communion with Christ, and one another – said the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki to mark the new pastoral year, starting on the first Sunday of Advent.

The First Sunday of Advent, December 3, marks the beginning of a new liturgical and pastoral year. The motto of the pastoral program adopted for this time in the entire Church in Poland is: “I Am Part of the Community of the Church”. As Archbishop Gądecki indicated, “the theme of the new pastoral years is to encourage Christians to a more conscious and active participation in the life of the Church”.

The President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference urged “each Catholic, clergymen, religious and lay faithful, should ask themselves to what extent the community of the Church is their community with which they identify and live. First, to what extent their relationship with Christ is alive, and then to what extent they are involved in the daily life of their diocese, parish, parish group, and family, i.e. the domestic Church”.

“In the new pastoral year, I encourage each of us to take root ever more firmly in the Church through active participation, in communion with Christ, and one another. May Mary, Mother of the Church, and St. Joseph, the patron saint of the Church, help us become an ever more living and dynamic Church” – observed the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference.

Press Office of the Polish Bishops’ Conference

Translated by Marcin Turski / Office for Foreign Communication of the Polish Bishops’ Conference