By Eileen Gianiodis | Photography by Don Quillan
“It has been a year of change and transition,” she says. “It has not been easy but through it all, it just feels so very right.”
This fall, Glenna will be commissioned a lay ecclesial minister. The commissioning will formalize her already active ministry at St. Patrick’s.
Since 1994, when Glenna became a member of the parish, she has been an RCIA sponsor, taught third grade faith formation, volunteered with the parish’s art and the environment committee and several other ministries over the next few years.
On top of that, she is a wife to Michael and mother to three sons – Nathan, 23; Tyler, 17; and Alex, 12.
Glenna says her call to become a lay ecclesial minister has been a discernment process including “prayer, formation, retreats, increased sacramental/liturgical practices and spiritual director that revealed my calling to ministry and service.”
The vocational call to lay ecclesial ministry is rooted in baptism. Fully initiated Catholics, gifted to serve the faith community as public leaders, can formally become lay ecclesial ministers. To do so they must meet the following criteria:
• Must be authorized by a bishop or pastor;
• Exercises leadership of a particular area of ministry;
• Works in close collaboration with bishops, priests and deacons; and
• Has received the appropriate preparation and formation for the responsibilities to which they are assigned.
Glenna started the formation program for lay ecclesial ministers in 2004 at Siena Heights University. She completed her studies last May.
A lay ecclesial minister publicly ministers in the name of and for the whole church, she says.
“It is necessary that lay ecclesial ministers be recognized formally by the ordained leadership in the dioceses and parishes to ensure a strong relationship with the ordained ministry as well as other people in the communities that they serve.”
Although the people she works with will benefit greatly from her call and commissioning, Glenna says her call gives her something too.
“Serving God gives me an inner peace and joy for life,” she says. “This inner peace gives me the ability to respect each person for who they are and to have patience as well as an open heart. The main reason I am called to this ministry is so I can, and the people I serve, can grow in a deeper relationship with Christ.”
She cites her work with teens in her parish as solidifying the call.
“I have known for the past few years that I was called to serve,” she says. “Since I began working with this tremendous community of teens, I have never smiled more, laughed more, danced more and been blessed more. They are wise, genuine and honest but more than that open to all that God has to offer them. This just has to be the ‘right thing to do’!”
|
