Health and Healing

Health and Healing Ministry

The Health and Healing Ministries promote and support the members of the St. Peter Church community in many areas:

Holy Communion for the Homebound – Trained Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion bring Christ to our parishioners unable to attend Mass due to chronic illness, recent surgery, or other health issues.
Hospital visits– Trained Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion bring Christ to Catholic patients in Memorial Hospital North.
Grief Support - This beautiful ministry holds weekly support meetings and serves about 30-35 people each year. We hold two 13-week sessions serving people who have experienced significant loss, usually a spouse, child, or parent.
Grief Support also holds special sessions on Spousal Loss during the summer and surviving the holidays in November and December.
Meals Ministry – Volunteers serve others in their times of trial and difficulty by dropping off home-cooked meals for parish families welcoming new babies, those who are homebound, suffering loss, or facing other life challenges.
Prayer Shawl – Volunteers hand knit or crochet shawls and lap robes that are given to people who are experiencing grief, illness, sadness, loneliness, or any other situation when the gift of love and prayer would be helpful and comforting.
Stephen Ministry – Stephen Ministers are lay Christians who receive a minimum of 50 hours of training and continuing education to equip them to provide confidential one-on-one Christian care to those in our community who are experiencing difficulty. A Stephen Minister typically meets with his or her (same sex) care receiver about an hour per week to listen, pray, support, encourage, and “be there” as long as needed.

For more information about serving in our Health and Healing ministries, please contact Melissa Smith at melissa.smith@petertherock.org or call the parish office at 719-481-3511.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." -- Matthew 11:28

Your gifts are at work in our
Health and Healing Ministries!
April 23, 2021

We are so grateful for your prayers and financial support for these ministries. They are a beautiful expression of Christ’s love in action, and are ready to provide you and your family with any assistance you might need.

Funeral Masses

Our support for the family members often begins before the person passes away, usually when they are ill or in hospice care. Many families need assistance in walking through questions on End of Life Issues, Catholic teaching, Means of Support, and Assisted Suicide. It is our responsibility to remain educated on Catholic teaching and be able to provide accurate information in a sensitive and timely fashion.

When a person passes, we are often the first phone call family members make. Many do not know what to do at that point and feel very lost. Immediately, we go to the home to sit with family, work with the coroner, call the funeral home, and help the family walk through that difficult time.
We then begin the planning process:
-scheduling the funeral service working closely with Fr. Gregory’s schedule
-coordinating details with the funeral home
-mobilizing Martha’s Ministry for receptions
-reserving the room and arranging the table set up with our facilities’ manager
-sharing family music requests with our music director
-initializing our wonderful Meals Ministry
-providing funeral information to our parish prayer list emails
-inviting Arimatheans to attend if appropriate

On the day of the Funeral Mass, volunteers also assist in preparing the altar, setting up a Memory Table for loved ones to be placed in the vestibule, arranging flowers bouquets and ensuring loved ones have a comfortable place to gather before Mass begins.
Following the Funeral, we maintain ongoing, long-term support for the family along the path of grief. Over the course of the next year, we send a series of four booklets called “Journeying Through Grief”. These provide timely and helpful information on the grief process, allowing families to talk with each other about the issues they face together.
Funeral pre-planning services: We also support families who are thinking ahead and would like to preplan their services. As a heartfelt gift to their children, a funeral preplan relieves the family from the multitude of decisions that must be made upon a loved one’s death and helps make a difficult process come together more smoothly.

Grief Support-Volunteer leaders: Bonnie Schmidt and Steve Beck

Weekly Grief Share meetings- This beautiful ministry serves about 30-35 people each year. We hold two 13-week sessions serving people who have experienced significant loss, usually a spouse, child, or parent.
We also hold special sessions on Spousal Loss during the summer and surviving the holidays in November and December. To help persons stay connected in the summer months, we have potluck dinners at members' homes.
Stephen Ministry provides a wonderful complementary support to our Grief Share participants. For anyone who is not ready or comfortable with sharing in a group, the individualized, one-to-one support of a Stephen Minister can be a tremendous help to those along the path of grief.

Stephen Ministry-Volunteer leader: Lupita Tenpenny

This beautiful ministry provides one-to-one, confidential care and support for individuals experiencing a variety of difficult life situations.
We are currently serving people with a wide variety of support needs including many coping with loss of child, spouse, sibling or parent. More intensive supports involve parental abuse, children in addiction, legal issues with siblings, severe mental health challenges, dementia, assisted suicide, chronic illness, caregiver burnout. In many cases we work closely with law enforcement and mental health experts to ensure necessary supports are in place, recognizing that some needs are beyond our role as Stephen Ministers.
We co-train with two other parishes in our diocese and annually provide a six-month intense course to prepare our new Stephen Ministers.
If we can support your family through a difficult time, our Stephen Ministers would be honored to help.

Communion to the Homebound and Nursing Homes

We support Catholic residents at three area nursing homes with Communion visits each week. Our deacons follow the protocol for each facility to ensure safety of all residents. In addition, lay parishioners set up visits with Activity Directors for folks who have no family or would just like to talk with a companion.
We have 41 trained EMHCs who are available to visit our homebound parishioners, and several who make regular weekly visits.

Hospital visits and Prayer Shawl Ministry

We have been fortunate to develop very strong relationships with hospice companies and have been able to see many of our parishioners even during the pandemic. We work closely with the Ministry to Elders in Long-term Care Facilities to ensure the amazing Prayer Shawl Ministry’s talents are shared with those on need.

Meal Ministry-Volunteer leader: Madeleine Bucher

This ministry steps in to serve when a family member has passed away, during times of chronic illness or after a new baby arrival. Meals are usually provided three or four times per week for a few weeks. This amazing group of volunteers provides a special gift of prayers and compassion through the simple act of providing a homemade meal for a family in need.

Fostering Hope-Volunteer leader: Clara McWilliams

This amazing team supports a foster family in our community who recently welcomed two wonderful young girls into their family. We meet with the family each month to learn about their needs and are privileged to provide things like weekly meals, prayer support, babysitting sessions, birthday gifts, respite care, rides to medical appointments, etc. We have teamed up with a few members of the Monument Presbyterian Church and are grateful to be able to join faiths under this shared purpose.

If we can be of service for you or your family, please reach out to Melissa Smith at the parish office: 719.481.3511 or email melissa.smith@petertherock.org.