Greetings in Christ, all! I’ve got lots of important information for you this week, so let’s get right after it.
I need to run “sick calls” and Last Rites by you, so you know how to get ahold of us and the best way to do it. Every once in a while, I’ll hear someone tell me I “missed” them or their loved one and I feel so bad. Fr. Le and I believe strongly in getting to people who are sick and/or dying and it breaks our hearts if we find out we missed someone. So, I’ve looked into it and I think I know what we need to do so that Fr. Le and I can serve better.
It starts with the difference between Anointing of the Sick and Last Rites.
Anointing of the Sick is for those who need prayers in their sickness. It is a sacrament that we priests administer. As a general rule, there isn’t a hurry for Anointing of the Sick, meaning it’s not usually an emergency call, but something we can get to in the next day or two. For these, I recommend you simply call the parish office. They will work hard to punch holes in our schedules so that we can get to it in a timely manner.
Last Rites are a series of prayers we pray over/with people who are actively dying. When we get a Last Rites call, we come right then and there or as soon as humanly possible.
For Last Rites, you should always use the parish emergency line: (810) 356-3187. When you call that number, no one will answer. Instead, you leave a message and it goes to three persons’ phones so that we can coordinate getting there asap. Just let us know who is dying, where they are geographically and Fr. Le and I will work together to make sure one of us gets there if it is humanly possible. If we can’t, the third person will work hard to find a priest who can.
This leads us to the next topic of funeral planning. When someone we love dies and we want the funeral at Holy Family, it is important that you call us first. In other words, I’m asking you to make sure you talk with us at Holy Family before you set a date and time with the funeral home. If you sit with the funeral home and plan the day and time and then call us, it really makes it difficult and sometimes even impossible. With two parishes and a school, Fr. Le and I have crazy schedules and our parish is an active one, so we can’t always change things with just a couple days’ warning.
Another thing you may want to consider is talking to your kids about having a funeral Mass. More and more, I’ll talk to the kids who say things like “Mom wouldn’t want a fuss” and do not allow us to pray a funeral Mass. To be clear, we offer a Mass for that person anyway because our souls need that after death. But I think well-intentioned children of the deceased can be too quick to assume that a Mass would not have been wanted or needed. As Catholics, we know that a funeral Mass is not “a fuss,” but a necessary part of our sacramental life.
Finally, you may remember that a few months ago, Fr. Le and I talked at all the Masses about the diocese plan to help her priests. A vast majority of us priests are happy but struggling mightily to meet the needs of our communities with limited resources and all the normal limitations of being human. Priests are burning out, struggling to keep up, etc. (PS: I’m tired, but happy!) Beyond that, while Catholics still ask for funerals, baptisms, sick calls, weddings and other sacraments of the Church, they don’t all support the Church or regularly go. As a result, we’re struggling with the limitations that this provides. So committees met, plans were made, and in the end, they decided to group parishes by geography and similarity. The plan was for priests to live in community and work together with a larger number of priests over a larger number of parishes. For my part, I was excited about this and shared that joy with you. However, I apparently was not in the majority on this topic and unfortunately most priests did not like it or want to cooperate with it so the model is going to change.
Our grouping is still the same: Holy Family in Grand Blanc, St. Mark in Goodrich and St. John in Fenton, but they abandoned requiring priests to live and work together.
You already share me with St. Mark so I don’t know if you’ll even notice anything if something does happen. To be blunt, I don’t understand what they are going to do and I’m not sure what this all means. As I figure it out, I’ll share it with you.
*Whew!* That’s a lot of typing for me and reading for you…I hope you find this helpful.
I love you all and thank Jesus I get to serve you.
Fjk