Happy One Year Anniversary of Terry’s Tidings!
The Leadership Team would like me to highlight the many movements that are happening within and because of our community and get us ready for a conversation of where we want to go next.
As a community, we have focused largely on two pillars. Supporting our Community and Networking. The leadership team is seeing us evolve. We think we see a third pillar emerging. So we are setting time aside for all of us to discern as a community as we approach the end of the liturgical year. There is so much good stuff to share, I’m going to break this into four different messages over the month. This is the first.
Pillar 1: The SE Community as a supportive Faith Family
Don’t we feel AMAZINGLY blessed whenever we come together? Our first pillar is to keep creating social/spiritual/formation connection for the community as we accompany one another with the Holy Spirit in our own synodal journey. We have many avenues for that like how our prayer services both help in connection and formation of us, but also of creating quality lay presiders. Being in-person is very nurturing for us and we have some had powerful in-person gatherings recently. We were gifted with the ability to come together to honor a couple of women who have been strong examples in our community of living our SE values. Firstly, we had a mass and social at St Owen that was a meaningful and emotional sendoff of our precious Sr Margaret just before she moved back to the mothership…I mean motherhouse, in Dubuque (and we’ll have another one at Christ the Redeemer Sep 21!). Susan Lindsey presented Margaret with a quilt she made with a number of handwritten messages stitched in from the community that was made in her favorite colors. See the e-news.
We also just celebrated the life of Shirly Brzezinski who passed away Aug 22. Not only is Shirley Fr Jerry’s sister-in-law, but she had also been a part of the SJF music group even before Augie came. She and Kevin Shaunessy sang with Jeff LaDuke in the early 70s. It was a beautiful two days of coming together in tears, laughter, and a lot of music as the Angels welcomed her into Paradise.
Both of these women exemplify the fierce Love AND the Joy of the Gospel by their lives.
Side note: Jeff LaDuke set a good standard for music in those early days of Catholic Folk Groups. And Augie was able to take it to the next level and beyond and Shirley and Kevin were a constant presence all that time. In a crazy coincidence, Jeff LaDuke passed away a week before Shirley and she was planning on singing at his service with Kevin on …Aug 22. Thankfully, Sheila, Sheran, Frank, and Kevin were able to give him a beautiful service at SJF all while keeping Shirley in their hearts.
Finally, Aug 22 was a busy day for our community and God! We also celebrated the life of Ward Randol, Jr., partner of Lorrain Cambell and extraordinary philanthropist, volunteer, music lover, and member of our community. We gathered at the Troy Historic Village where he had been a major contributor and influencer.
Pillar 2: Fostering the Kindom through Networking and Collaboration
The second SE Community pillar is finding ways of collaborating and networking with others around our SE values to get a bigger bang for our efforts. Right now, we have kicked off the Season of Creation with a knock your socks off video prayer service by our friend ValLimar Jansen who lives in California. You can see her live next Mar 7 for our Lenten observance next year as we partner with St Owen to bring her in. Additionally, we have once again spearheaded a collaboration among our neighbors to celebrate the Season of Creation in a meaningful way. Last year, we helped in founding the SE Michigan Interfaith Climate Justice Initiative (ICJI). This year, in addition to the many activities across the region, we will all partner to have an Ecumenical prayer service at St Phillips Episcopal in Rochester. See the calendar in our e-news. Rev Eric from St Philips will also be joining us in a weekend prayer service.
It will be wonderful to celebrate this season together.
Much love,
Terry
Next time in Part 2: The fruits of our ever-growing network.
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