Dear Saints,
There’s a lot going on around here these days. With the help of the bulletin, I hope you find the activity easy enough to track. My hope is that you’ll find the bulletin useful as a source of information, a means of connection to OLMC, and an avenue to become engaged and involved in parish life. If there’s anything we can do to improve along those lines (or others), please let me know.
This week, I was talking to a fellow parishioner about mental health.
Now, be honest. When you read what I just wrote, did you start thinking about mental illness? I usually make that connection immediately.
This isn’t too helpful for any number of reasons, but the main issue we talked about was the idea that our discussion of wellness has become about an overly simplified either/or: you’re either healthy or ill. The reality is that each of us has some healthy habits of heart and mind, and each of us has unhealthy habits of heart and mind. Just to make the whole thing trickier, Christian theology, spirituality, and morality are all at stake in the conversation.
The Christian horizon for life is hopeful: We are broken in all manner of ways, but Christ wills our healing.
I’ve been witness to the Spirit’s work these past few months in nothing short of miraculous ways, and this has me more and more committed to fostering healthy hearts and minds at OLMC. To that end, we are in the process of expanding our team of Stephen Ministers, a group exists to accompany people in challenging moments or seasons of life, making present God’s love where it is most needed.
Join me in thanking the founding members of this ministry (Bonny O’Mullane, Lori Testa, John Testa, Eileen Vandenberg, Anita Patterson, and Debra Molloy) and encouraging our new recruits (John and Cathy Robben, Romualdo Galloza and Catalina Sanchez, Joseph Chapman, JaneAnne Topor, Helene Damato, Kathleen Banks, Greg Francesca, Gregory Milbank, Marie Fragomeni, and Diane Hertzig).
And please know that I am here for you. I’m eager to join you on this journey, and I’m not afraid of daunting and difficult challenges: these are often our best opportunities to grow into the lives of great meaning and purpose that God wants for us.
I love you my friends, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Christ’s Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ