From the Pastor: 09-08-2019

​Twenty-two years ago, Beth Frola and Rosemary Connelly began our Parish Nurse Ministry. This wonderful ministry included scores of nurses and health-care professionals from our parish in providing services and information on health care issues from a Catholic Christian perspective. They have been involved with everything from taking blood pressures after Sunday Masses, to preparing and running various seminars and workshops on health-related topics, to organizing our annual Mass with the Anointing of the Sick each Fall. We are very grateful for all of those who have been part of this ministry over the past two decades. At this time, for various reasons, the Parish Nurse Ministry is going to go into an inactive status as a parish organization as of October 1, 2019. This ministry has changed over the years and much of what was done in the past cannot be done now. Privacy laws and liability issues have changed health care greatly in the past couple of years (I don’t have to tell this to all of you still actively involved in the health-care profession!) and has affected parish-based nurse ministry. Of course, parish ministry to the sick will never really die, but it will change. As we take a hiatus away from this ministry as we have known it, I hope and pray that a new generation of health-care professionals will step forward at some time with new ideas and ways of doing parish nurse ministry in the future. Until then, many thanks to those who began this ministry in our parish and to the many who made it possible over the years. May God bless you for your faithfulness and service to the parish! God will reward you!