January 25, 2010 PEA Meeting Minutes (a change from the usual third Monday)
Prayer: Rosary at 7pm
Place: Fatima
Present: Grace Schmidlin, Joy Harbert, Steve Green, Jeanine Schmolt, Pat Tekulve, Sally Schroder
November Minutes (no meeting in December): Approved
Old Business
Report from Grace and Sally's meeting on January 15, 2010 with Dave Auxier:
The Blessed Sacrament Chapel needs a deep cleaning.
When winter is over and before Easter, our chapel will be cleaned thoroughly, especially the rug and kneelers. The kneelers will be reupholstered as they are very soiled after almost six years of kneeling. (There was mention that the tabernacle angels are often dusty and need a careful cleaning.)
Eucharistic Procession on February 14 will be held after the 6 PM Mass. Father Robert Hadden and Patrick Reis, youth minister, will be the planners. Sally Schroder will contact the Knights of Columbus and inform parishioners via the bulletin/website.
PEA Invitation Weekend to invite all parishioners to become committed adorers
Dave offered the possible dates of the weekend of June 5 & 6 , 2010 or any weekend in October. Our guest priest will be discerned through prayer. Possibilities were discussed and Grace Schmidlin will contact a priest in Indiana. If he is not available, we will go to an apostolate whose charism is starting and maintaining Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.
IHM's Electronic Billboard: We are hoping that the message submitted by PEA will be displayed at some point. Dave explained how many ministries are asking for this space.
Dave said that there would be a possibility of more exposition hours if we had adequate coverage!* (See Brainstorming session on page 3 entitled More Exposition)
We are in need of continued catechesis about the True Presence of Christ in the tabernacle and in the monstrance.
Revised Organizational Chart: We will have this at our February meeting and will include our new 5pm captain, Linda Gauggel. Thank you to Mary Ann Faust for her years of captaining this hour from the very beginning!
Identifying the Sub: The use of Sub. stickers to identify the substitute adorer is being used. We lknow this because some stickers have been taken from the envelope beneath the Sign in book. We will continue this practice for Exposition only.
Website familiarity so that many parishioners go to our website: We are scattering thought-provoking, brief nuggets in the bulletin with our logo and web information. It was agreed that we will continue this practice for a while.
Spreading the word: Invitations that encourage parishioners to go to our website and include contact information will be put in new parishioner "take home" bags and in the actual New Parishioner Evening materials. Sue Grethel has graciously agreed to take care of this. Suggestion: Sacred Heart radio's Brian Patrick of the Son Rise morning show goes around to parishes introducing all to this powerful catechesis tool via the airwaves. Dave Rinderle was mentioned as one of the originators of this station. Would he facilitate bringing Mr. Patrick, with permission of Fr. Tom Kreidler?
Weather challenges: Communication with adorers is important when there is any kind of unusual circumstance. We encourage our captains to be proactive and call your adorers right away if exposition/adoration has been cancelled and the adorers do not have to come to the chapel. There will be a brief bulletin piece addressing this situation. Please consider making your holy hour at home when unable to physically be in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
New Oral Prayer Addition: We have added the Hail Holy Queen prayer to the back of the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart Oral Prayer upon request.
For your information: In the novena, we are praying for an increase in the grace of Christian faith, hope, and love especially belief in the true presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, in Jesus' and Mary's intercession for us, and that all may love Jesus above all things, our neighbor as ourselves, and that all may adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. There are copies of this prayer on the 'take one' table and in the pamphlet area near the picture of the Sacred Heart. All are encouraged to take one home and pray.
Suggestion from a Division Leader to provide Hourly Charts of the hour after the adorer's committed hour so that all can identify the committed adorers and possibly use for sub. purposes. The afternoon division has had some changes recently that would make this helpful. It is worth considering and this same suggestion has been made by a captain in the Midnight Division several times as well. It was mentioned that we might put our Hourly Charts on our website (without the phone numbers). Sally will check with Roxanne Barnes to see if this would be feasible to serve our adorers who are most comfortable with this tool.
New Business:
Coordinator's Report: After November 16, 2009
New adorers: 1 Changes: 4 Drops: 13 Total # of Adorers: 323 Needs: over a hundred
In looking at the names of the adorers who dropped, most are in challenging life circumstances including sickness, new babies, etc. It was agreed that long time devoted adorers be sent a thank you appreciation card and also those who are sick. Sally will check with the parish office to see if there are blank note cards with the lovely picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the front.
Division Leaders' Reports: To the best of our DLs’ ability, the updated charts were turned in to Peg Sorrentino in Formation regarding the most accurate names of their adorers. Peg said that Jayne Simms was sent the names who then forwarded them to Clyde Dial of Stewardship.
Morning-Pat Tekulve: gave new HCs to Grace and Sally. Pat emailed her captains that she needed updated information. She is checking on one adorer who hasn't come for a while and will get back to the coordinators.
Afternoon-Jeanine Schmolt: Linda Gauggel is our new 5 PM captain. Welcome, Linda! Jeanine was given a new captain letter with responsibilities for a captain. Each captain should have a notebook to keep their records in. When a captain is stepping down, remember to return your binder. There is great need for an adorer at 3 PM on Fridays. (Grace Schmidlin has since stepped up to be committed at this hour.) There are a few adorers that Jeanine is checking on to see if they still adore. A suggestion was to check with the parish office to see if some may have moved.
Evening-Joy Harbert: This large division is doing well. It was mentioned that the Angel doors leading into the candle foyer have been unlocked recently. Joy will contact Tina Wolfer, our 8 PM captain, to let her adorers know to go ahead and close them so that they can be locked electronically. It was noted that this is not a safety issue as it would be if the outside door was not locked.
Midnight-Steve Green: His hourly charts are almost complete; he is checking with his captains. Steve will make sure that a thank you note is sent to long time adorers, Mary Kay and Steve Slattery, who have stopped adoring. Our midnight captain has not been able to fulfill the captain duties. A coordinator will send a thank you note and Steve will be the interim captain. Grace will pray and discern.
Captain-Kathy M. question: If someone is subbing for a committed adorer, is the adorer recorded as attending? On your tracking sheet, the adorer is checked as present since he/she has made the effort to get coverage. One way to note this is to put a small “S” in the corner so that your DL will be aware
Captains: Please follow up immediately with the adorers on your tracking sheets who have missed two weeks in a row. We want them to know that we care and support them; also assist him/her in finding a sub if needed. Sally will update the Adoration Needs in the next week after all updates are confirmed.
With a commitment and desire to move adoration of the Blessed Sacrament forward at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, to keep us alive in faith and numbers, we pray that many more people will come to believe that Jesus is truly present through both tabernacle adoration and the visual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Focus on exposition and the ongoing problems with few people able to lift the 12-pound monstrance, lightened from the original 17 pounds, to place on top of the tabernacle on a regular basis, as we recall the damage this monstrance has done to backs. We also desire that current and future priests at Immaculate Heart of Mary can easily lift and carry a monstrance for some time as in a Eucharistic procession.
We brainstormed ways to make exposition/reposition more manageable. 'Out of the box' was welcome! Ideas generated include:
· Meet with Father Tom Kreidler to make him aware of the problems this monstrance has caused and the difficulty trying to find folks who can lift it up and onto the top of the tabernacle. Some of our people exposing and reposing probably should not be lifting.
· Father Tom and Grace and Sally meet with the people who donated the funding for this monstrance and communicate the situation.
· Lighten the monstrance another five pounds.
· Buy or find a light weight monstrance for use in Eucharistic processions. Churches that have closed or have one they do not use would be a place to start.
· Clean/repair the monstrance that preceded the wooden one and use it for processions.
· Shorten the legs of the tabernacle so that the lifting motion is not such a stretch.
· Get a step stool with handles so that there is something to hold on to.
· Leave the monstrance on top of the tabernacle and cover it when not in use. (The Blessed Sacrament would NOT be in it.)
· Trade it in.
· Put an S.O.S. in the bulletin asking for strong Eucharistic ministers who could do this job and would be available.
· Suspend the monstrance up in the ceiling and lower it when needed.
· General consensus: We need a lighter weight monstrance! The current one ties our hands as far as adding more hours of exposition. It is uncomfortable asking people to lift this monstrance when we know damage is subtle and is not felt before it is too late.
We also brainstormed about additional blocks of time that might lend themselves to more hours of exposition. Ideas included:
· Add hours during the morning and evening hours when we have many adorers
· Talk to Brother Edward/IHM religion teachers about bringing the children for 15-minute sessions back to back
· Rotate exposition so that faithful adorers can have the joy of exposition once in a while.
· Expand hours to begin Wednesday after noon Mass (after we have 'Invitation Sunday' and many new adorers).
· Have exposition on the altar on Saturdays before and during the Rosary at 7:45 AM and while the Rosary is prayed after the noon Mass.
Our core leadership team will pray and discern which of the above ideas will be pursued. If any captain or adorer has another idea, please let Sally know (schrod60@zoomtown.com) or 232-7252.
Other: It was suggested that it is time to renew our Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We will ask Dave Auxier. (History: IHM parish consecrated in October, 2000 and in September of 2004.) A suggestion was to do this at all Sunday Masses so that everyone is aware. There is a beautiful consecration prayer that speaks to families, parish families, extended families, etc. in the Enthronement ceremonial booklet.
Lack of adequate lighting trained on sacramental statues/ pictures in church especially Mary and St. Joseph statues and the Sacred Heart crewel picture. Steve reported that Dave Auxier is working on having lighting added to the statues in the alcoves.
Father Corapi, July 2010: Are we interested in going as a group? Tabled until next meeting.
All are invited to come before our enthroned Sacred Heart picture off the exit near the choir and pray for needs of our parish. Pray and keep the Novena to the Sacred Heart. SAME AS THE NEW ORAL PRAYER.
Fasting on Wednesdays continues . All are asked to consider fasting in some way on Wednesdays that many new adorers will sign up to fill the 100 plus openings that are available.
PLEASE COME TO THE EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION ON VALENTINE'S DAY TO HONOR THE KING OF LOVE
Next meeting: Monday, February 15, 2010 Presidents' Day
Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, pray for us.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place all our trust in you!