Healing People

This ministry includes organizing members of the parish staff and lay ministers to visit with those who are ill or convalescing at home or in the hospital or other facilities to share God’s Word and Eucharist. This could also include providing transportation to parishioners requiring a trip to a doctor’s office or to a pharmacy. Eucharistic Ministers could also elect to visit the various medical units, nursing homes, or homes of the homebound to provide the Holy Eucharist within the context of a brief liturgy. Family and visitors could participate in these prayerful occasions.

• This ministry can include recruiting and training volunteers to visit Catholic patients in local hospital and nursing homes.  Volunteers pray with patients who ask, distribute rosaries and prayer cards, and convey requests for an extraordinary Communion by a Minister of the Eucharist or for visits from a priest for confession or the Sacrament of the Sick. They could also assist in helping residents to attend monthly Mass or Communion services.
• Grief is a universal language. Loss is something we all come to understand. But working through the experience is not always something we can or should do alone. Parish Bereavement Ministry is a ministry of support and healing for those who’ve suffered the death of a friend or family member and provides a reassuring presence for individuals and their families at the end of life. As a member of the Bereavement Ministry you could:

Visit grieving families, expressing the sympathy of the parish through thoughtfully written cards and notes.

• Represent the Parish when you meet with the family to plan the funeral.
• Support and guide the family in choices of readings, petitions and music, following The Funeral Liturgies Handbook.
• Help the family to find readers, people to carry the gifts of bread and wine, Eucharistic Ministers, etc.
• Gather information for the programs and any interesting facts or comments about the deceased family member.
• Be present at Church the day of the funeral to assist the family and answer any questions.

Grief is a universal language. Loss is something we all come to understand. But working through the experience is not always something we can or should do alone. Parish Bereavement Ministry is a ministry of support and healing for those who’ve suffered the death of a friend or family member and provides a reassuring presence for individuals and their families at the end of life.