Tell U.S. Catholic how hospitable your parish is

This month's U.S. Catholic Sounding Board article focuses on hospitality. Even if you don't think St. Thomas is great, (and I'll pretend not to be hurt by that) please take the time to read this article and respond to the survey at the end.

Let’s give a warm welcome
If parishes lose the Catholic tradition of hospitality, they risk losing members.

By Heather Grennan Gary

One place we can and should be reminded of what true hospitality is--and given a chance to practice it--is in our parish.

I learned this lesson the hard way when my husband and I moved with our young family to a new town several years back. While we were sad to say goodbye to our parish and the community we'd built, we were eager to move. And when we met people in our new town, one of the first questions they'd ask was, "Have you found a church yet?" Our answer was pretty straightforward: We were Catholics, and there was one Catholic parish in town, so that was that.

During our first year there, we attended the big Sunday morning Mass, the bilingual Mass, and the Saturday vigil. We volunteered to be lectors, to teach English to Spanish-speaking parishioners, and to help with the parish website. We took part in a reading group and bought SCRIP. Our daughter was too young for the regular religious ed program, but she made the age cutoff for Vacation Bible School, so she went. read the whole article here.