A recent study of parishes in the US undertaken by the Dynamic Parish program found that on average at a given parish, a mere 6.4% of parishioners contributed 80% of the volunteer hours, and a mere 6.8% of parishioners donate 80% of financial contributions to the parish. They further found that there was an 84% overlap between these two groups, meaning that a total of 7% of parishioners support the bulk of the work of a parish. Now you may not realize it, but the parable of the sower that we heard yesterday was just a more covert way of expressing these same facts, maybe not in so stark terms, but the seed that falls in the good soil has to bear 30, 60 and 80 fold in order to make up for the failure to bear any fruit of the seed that fell on the path, the thorns and the rocky ground. Thursday 28 January 2021 Reflection.pdf — PDF (72.2 KB)