The purpose of the PPC is to: act as a consultative body to the Pastor and in co-responsibility with the Pastor, provide leadership, direction, education, resources and encouragement in the parishes’ accomplishment of their mission as expressed under the four poles of church life: liturgy, faith formation, fellowship and transformation in accordance with the vision of the Church of Gatineau. Over these past 6 years “The Parish Pastoral Council of the Parishes of Our Lady of Victory and St. Malachy” has strived to meet and support the spiritual needs of its faith community, as laid out in these guidelines.

However, the current PPC finds itself in need of reexamining its current structure as well as the scope of its mandate so that its original purpose can be best supported. This comes about in the wake of our community’s committees and councils continuous struggle to both attract new blood and to establish open and ongoing dialogue so that the operational & spiritual needs of our 2-parish community are best met.

To be specific, in the 6 years since the re-establishment of the joint-PPC, only one or the original members of the committee has been replaced. Also, while past meetings to discuss the financial and spiritual needs of the community have drawn attendance and interest, attempts to gain feedback about tried faith initiatives have gathered little or no response.

The reexamination of the current PPC structure and mandate will attempt to address:

1. What is needed to attract individuals to lend their talents in a manner that best suits their time commitments, while addressing the spiritual needs of our faith community;



2. How to best support on-going dialogue within our faith community so that spiritual needs are best represented and acted on;



3. What the core spiritual needs of our community actually are; and



4. Given the current demographics and general interest of this 2-parish community, determine whether there is there a need for a body that supports initiatives beyond the core needs?

We practise a spirit of penance and of sacrifice in our daily lives, in the ordinary events of the day, without having to wait for extraordinary occasions. Penance is fulfilling exactly the timetable you have fixed for yourself even though your body resists or your mind tries to avoid it by dreaming up useless fantasies. Penance is getting up on time and also not leaving for later, without any real reason, that particular job that you find harder or most difficult to do;

Penance is knowng how to reconcile your duties to God; to others and to yourself by making demands on yourself so that you find enough time for each of your tasks. You are practising penance when you lovingly keep to your schedule of prayer, despite feeling worn out listless or cold

Penance means being very charitable at all times towards those around you starting with the members of your own family. It is to be full of tenderness and kindness towards the suffering the sick and the infirm. It is to give patient answers to people who are boring and annoying. It means interacting our work or changing our plans, when circumstances make this necessary, above all when the just and rightful needs of others are involved.

Penance consists in putting up good-humouredly, with the thousand and one little pinpricks of each day; in not abandoning your job, although you have momentarily lost the enthusiasm with which you started it; in eating gladly whatever is served; without being fussy.

For parents and; in general, for those whose work involves supervision or teaching penance is to correct whenever it is necessary. This should be done bearing in mind the type of fault committed and the situation of the person who needs to be so helped; not letting oneself be swayed by subjective viewpoints, which are often cowardly and sentimental.

A spirit of penance keeps us from becoming too attached to the vast imaginative blueprints we have made for our future projects, where we have already foreseen our master strokes and brilliant successes. What joy we give to God when we are happy to lay aside our third-rate painting efforts and let him put in the features and colours of his choice!

Liturgy Committee