March 22, 2009

Dear friends in life and in ministry . . .

A restful Sunday included preaching at St. Mary's and St. Gabriel's, a visit to my office volunteer extraordinaire Paula Gardner who is back in Corning Hospital after a week or so of rehabing from a recent stoke. Keep her in your prayers if you would. She seems to have lost some of the use of the leg affected previously. Very discouraging.

Weekend highlights included a Friday evening dinner and get-together at the home of a local DJ Al Chan with my Weight-loss challenge team mate, her spouse, our personal trainer Sandie and Pat. Good, healthy food, great conversation and the opportunity to watch a few episodes of The Biggest Loser. Man, those folks make us look positively skinny - but how inspiring.

Saturday and Sunday afternoon Pat and I spent an hour or so at the YMCA with our grandson Jack. His first real pool experience went well.

As of last Wednesday's weigh in I'm down 24 pounds and feeling really great.

My bulletin column this week will seem familiar if you read my comments at the beginning of last week's email. Its my reflections on the week's blessing including the death of Rob Wilson, a young parishioner who went home to the Lord last Saturday. On Tuesday, we celebrated his new life with a funeral service at St. Mary's. In addition to Rob's mother Janet, his kids Tyler and Hailey and their mother Amy, several of the very caring people attended from Hospice, local human service agencies Arbor Development and Reverb, and St. Mary's attended. All had helped Rob over the past several months. It was a day and service I will long remember.
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A Week of Many Special Blessings

If you have ever wondered why someone would choose to become a priest, deacon or hospice volunteer - the blessings that I experienced a week ago provide an answer.

On Thursday, during my monthly Scripture/Communion service at the Fred and Harriet Taylor Health Center, I had the privilege of baptizing Fran Cummings. Fran, and his wife Sylvia have been married for about 48 years. Throughout many of those years, Sylvia has prayed that one day her husband would join her in faith. That prayer was answered recently when Fran, who has been receiving care at the skilled nursing facility, expressed a desire to be baptized.

What a wonderful setting to welcome Fran into the community of faith - for the residents of our area nursing homes and hospitals are indeed part of our parish family. The hosts they receive on Sunday’s when Bill and Deb Brinkhus, Tina and John McKinley, Denise and Phyllis Crossett, Carey and Paul Spara, Frieda Fiordo or Betty Langendorfer bring them Communion, are the same consecrated hosts that you and I received earlier at Mass. (The same is true when I hold scripture/Communion services at the Steuben County Jail.)

Most of us were baptized into the Catholic faith as young children. But this was not always the case. Fran joins hundreds of thousands of people who in the early centuries of Christianity entered the church as mature adults. In keeping with the wisdom of God’s time-table - each person enters the sacred waters - right on schedule.

But Fran’s baptism would not be the only blessing I’d experience that week. On Friday afternoon, March 13, at their father's request, I baptized 7 year old Tyler Wilson and his 4 year old sister Hailey Wilson.

Rob Wilson, (39) joined our parish in August 2009 and received the sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop Clark in October. A life long diabetic, Rob soon developed other very serious health problems and in January, underwent surgery for kidney, bladder and prostate cancer which left him very weak and no longer able to join us at Mass.

When Paula Gardner and I visited him on Ash Wednesday, we discovered that Rob’s health had taken a turn for the worse. At Mass that evening, and again at our Lenten program, I asked for prayers for Rob and explained that, aside from his children who lived in Campbell with their mother, Rob had very little support systems in the area. His mother lived in Denver, and her plans to be with her son had been delayed when she suffered heart problems that required the placement of a pace-maker.

Within days, tests confirmed that the cancer had spread to Rob’s liver and he began to receive hospice care at his East Washington Street apartment.

Less than a week past before, thanks to the generosity of Gen Kashmer who had recently lost her own son to liver cancer, Rob's mom Janet Wilson, flew from Denver to be with her son during his remaining days.

On Wednesday, after visiting with his children for the first time in three weeks, Rob asked me to baptize his children. So, on Friday afternoon, with Rob, Janet and Amy, the children’s mom present, I was privileged to do so at his bedside. Rob was weak, but fully conscious during the baptism and received a special anointing by his children following the very special ritual.

The next day, Saturday, March 14, following our 4 p.m. Mass, I stopped by the apartment to check in with Rob and Janet. Minutes before I arrived, Rob had suffered some kind of seizure and Janet was on the phone speaking with the hospice nurse.

After visiting with the very weak man for a brief time, Janet and I held his hands as I prayed the Church’s Commendation Prayers for the dying and shared a tiny portion of a communion host with Rob as “Viaticum” (Communion for the journey). Within thirty seconds after he had received Communion and listened as a litany of scripture verses were quietly prayed, Rob went to the Lord.

"Come to me all you who labor and find life burdensome. I will give you rest."

If you have never been with someone as they leave this life for the next, you may wonder why I'd consider this experience such a blessing. But being with someone who has fought the good and painful fight as he or she moves
toward the peace of God's embrace, is indeed a blessing. The gift of faith gives us confidence and hope.

"Though I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil - for you are with me with your rod and your staff that give me courage."

On Tuesday of this week, I gathered with Tyler, Hailey, Amy and Janet at Fagan’s for a brief farewell visitation. Then, with the help of our Resurrection Assembly, we celebrated at St. Mary’s Church that for Rob, “ the strife is o’er - the vict’ry won.”

Thank you God for the blessings of ministry and the generosity of our parishioners who have made our parish “a welcoming oasis of love, peace, justice and outreach.”

“When I was a stranger - you welcomed me and cared for my needs.”

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Congratulations to my son Chris and his girlfriend Audrey who became engaged on Saturday. What a week!

Have a blest week. Serve each other well

.Deacon Ray

Lands of the Bible Cruise

On November 11, 2009, you are invited to join Deacon Ray and Pat Defendorf and pastoral leaders from throughout the Diocese on a twelve-day Cruise to the “Lands of the Bible”.

Our itinerary includes an over-night flight to Athens where we will visit the Acropolis and the biblical city of Corinth before boarding the mv Cristal, a new 471 passenger cruise ship. We’ll dock at Port Said for a visit to Cairo (the Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids at Giza) then on to the port of Ashod in Israel. For two days we’ll visit sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem returning to the ship each evening for dinner and overnight.

Our next port is Haifa where we’ll disembark to tour the Galilee with stops at the Mount of the Beatitudes, Tabgha (the site of the miracle of the loaves and fish), a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and renew our baptismal vows at the Jordan River.

After a day at sea we’ll visit the Isle of Patmos where John wrote Revelations and then to Ephesus, Turkey where St. Paul established a Christian community on his first missionary journey. After a visit to Piraeus we’ll return to Athens for our return trip home.

The price of this journey of a lifetime(including roundtrip airfare, chartered cruise ship, guided shore excursions, daily breakfast, lunch and dinner while aboard ship, study guide, entrance fees and deluxe motorcoaches), starts at $2398 plus taxes, tips and fees.

Follow this link to download our itinerary:
http://www.deaconray.com/travel.htm

This cruise is expected to sell out so early reservations are very important. For more information and a brochure, please contact me by email or phone (607-426-1100).

Serve one another well!

(Click Here For Sent To Serve Archives)

Bulletin: March 22, 2009