A parish liturgy group is not a group that prepares particular liturgies or selects hymns. That is the job of a subgroup, or a working group with a particular task (e.g. planning Holy Week or the parish jubilee), or a particular individual (e.g. the parish music director).

A parish liturgy group is a policy-making body. It globally monitors the liturgical life of the parish and works to move the parish forward and help it to grow in its prayer life. While it may be concerned with particular details, it will not necessarily be the person(s) that is responsible for implementing those details. It will take a good look at how the parish does things, and how it might do them. It may on occasion determine the flavour of a particular season, such as Advent or Lent.

All this means that the parish liturgy group needs to be representative of the parish as a whole, so, in addition to the parish clergy, membership might include someone representing the parish readers, someone else representing ministers of communion, another person representing musicians, yet another representing servers, someone involved in RCIA and/or Children's Liturgy of the Word, and so on. If local schools have liturgy groups, they should also be represented on the parish group (and vice versa). It is often also a good idea to include one interested “ordinary pew person”from each of the weekend Masses celebrated in the parish.

The group will pray, reflect and take advice and input from parishioners and take decisions accordingly. The group will also have a system for disseminating information as widely as possible in the parish so that people understand what lies behind changes when these take place. The group will also probably want to have periodic times of ongoing formation during which the whole group is given input and a chance to grow.

The parish liturgy group may be the body responsible for commissioning a parish liturgy audit and processing the results.

Some pastoral areas already have area liturgy committees, and in other places two combining parishes have also combined their liturgy groups.

For more details, go to the Diocesan Liturgy Group Guidelines (link below).

Back to parish liturgy groups

Diocesan Liturgy Group Guidelines