Bereavement Support Ministry is on the way

06-23-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Robert Aliunzi

Dear Friends,

We have just recently concluded our Parish Census and Survey. One of the major purposes of these exercises as I told you, was to identify the needs of our Parish and appropriately address them. While the final outcome of the survey is still being compiled and will be shared at an appropriate time, one need that came out frequently from many of you and which I personally have been also thinking about, is the need for a Bereavement Support Ministry here in our Parish.

What is this Ministry all about? It is about providing spiritual, emotional and other supports to members of our community who are grieving the loss of a dear one. In other words, it is about providing a shoulder to lean on and a safe place where we can be vulnerable in exposing our raw emotions to people we trust after the loss of a dear one. I am sure all of us have experienced such a loss and can therefore appreciate the need for this support.

So, as we launch this Ministry, we are blessed to have some experienced members of our Parish who will be available to provide leadership for us. At the head of this Ministry will be Sandy Consiglio who took time to attend a course specifically geared towards running this Ministry of Bereavement. Below is what she wrote about her own experience which I would like to share with you:

My Dear Fellow Parishioners,

My husband, Salvatore and I, registered at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in 1979. Msgr. McCready was our Pastor then and, as it turned out, we both worked for him. Sal was his full-time employee and I part-time as I was downtown at the Diocesan Pastoral Center. When Msgr. McCready died, Father Timothy Davern was appointed by Bishop O’Brien to replace him. Our Parish has experienced many deaths of Parishioners over the years and transfers of a few Pastors and Associate Pastors since that time and here we are, vibrant and alive today. During these times we also celebrated the 75th Anniversary of our Parish and are heading close to our 100th Anniversary. Just like our lives…we celebrate births, anniversaries, weddings, ordinations, and deaths. How do I dare speak of “deaths” as a celebration?

Recently we read of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Creation and the free will option that was theirs to make and the actions that followed. Our loving Father did not abandon us. One of the greatest heart-wrenching difficulties of our lives is to face death. When we lose someone that we love, we have to face death and it hurts. Losing a parent or grandparent is hard. We loved them and they were part of who we are and what we have become. And as we continue to grow, we make choices through love and what we think will bring us happiness. When our spouse dies, our world is rocked, and our “footing” seems unstable as we try to make sense of how we are going to continue to live. We gather our remaining family and friends who are suffering with us with the hope of drawing strength from them as well.

We might holler at God and question Him and cry out to Him as to why He seems so far away from us. And to lose a child…why, God, why?

We may never get to these answers on this side of eternity. Perhaps all we can ever do is draw strength from one another and how God has given us the strength through prayer and our individual journeys of growth. For this reason and working toward healing, our Pastor, Fr. Robert and Parish Staff, want to offer a Bereavement Ministry so that those who suffer such losses can get to a better place of encouraging one another to lives of peace in doing God’s Will.

—Sandy Consiglio

So dear friends, stay tuned for more details on this Ministry in the days and weeks to come.

I love you.