Welcome to Renewal of Faith

A Pastoral Year is not required by all dioceses. It is to the individual bishop to decide whether he wishes his seminarians to complete a pastoral year. The Diocese of Rochester does require it. Some of the seminarians I have met from other dioceses say they do not understand why we should have to do a pastoral year. I respond that I was happy to do it. While we do spend summers working in parishes and some time in parish assignments while taking classes in the third and fourth year at the seminary, there is no substitute for working full-time in a parish for a year. Things can slow down in parishes in the summer so you do not get to see all that goes in a parish. The parish assignments during the third and fourth year at the seminary are only around five hours a week so again your involvement is limited.

There are actually two components to the pastoral year in the Diocese of Rochester. We begin the fifteen month period with a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).

I completed my CPE training at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY . There are some variations on the schedule of CPE depending on where and when you take it. The summer unit at Strong Memorial Hospital consists of eleven weeks of full-time work in the hospital with on-call duties. The first week is orientation and class time. Starting with the second week the time is split with twenty to twenty-five hours a week spent on the units with the patients and staff. The remainder of the time is an hour meeting with the supervisor and group time. In group time, you present verbatims of your visits and discuss them with the group to improve your skills for future visits. There are also times when the supervisor leads lecture discussions on various issues that patients often face. Lastly, about once a week you are responsible to spend a weeknight or a weekend day shift in the hospital. You are the only chaplain (backup is available) in the hospital and deal with emergency situations.

I freely admit I found my CPE experience very tiring but also beneficial. There is little doubt that full-time hospital ministry is not for me. However, I did learn things about myself such as my tendency to take sides in disagreements without even realizing it. As an introvert, meeting new people can be challenging for me. It is a challenge that I will face regularly in the parish environment. Through CPE, I have developed some skills on meeting new people in ministerial settings.

The rest of the pastoral year is spent working in a parish as a regular staff member. We are called to be involved in some ministries for exposure while also being more deeply involved in a few ministries and responsible for a couple. Each seminarian works with his assigned supervising pastor to determine his duties at the parish.

I was assigned to Church of the Assumption Parish in Fairport, NY with the pastor Rev. Edward L. Palumbos. I was assigned there from August 25, 2004 to August 8, 2005. What follows is an outline of my ministerial duties there.

Ministries with Limited Involvement:

RAIHN (Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network - RAIHN is a coalition of churches and temples who take turns providing housing for those seeking housing. My involvement has been minimal in just spending a little time with the people during their stay at Church of the Assumption. I did not spend enough time with the program to say much about it.
Blessed Sacrament Supper Program - Blessed Sacrament Church in Rochester hosts a dinner program for those in need. Various churches provide volunteers to help serve the meals. I went on one occasion with a group from Assumption. It was a slow night and I did not get to talk to the people that much. I helped serve food and then helped clean the tables and floor afterwards.
Finance Council - I attended Finance Council meetings mainly as an observer when the meetings do not conflict with other meetings. I have no financial background so I need to develop an understanding of the financial issues in running a parish.
Sacramental Preparation - I attended the workshops for parents on preparing for First Communion, First Penance, and Confirmation. The point of observing the workshops is to help me see how the parish administers the program to give me ideas for the future without requiring a high level of commitment.
Pre-Cana(Marriage Preparation) - I attended as an observer our parish Pre-Cana retreat day for couples in the parish preparing for marriage. I joined in on some of the small group discussions and did a "wrap-up" on the talk on spirituality given by a couple from the Pre-Cana Team. Assumption operates its Pre-Cana retreats by having couples who are already married give the talks from their own experience. I believe this is a very good idea. In general, the couples do a good job. They speak from their own experience.

Ministries with More Significant Involvement:

Stewardship Committee - This is certainly one of the committees where I had a lot of involvement. I have helped with the Parish Ministry Faire and the general work of the committee. The committee is a relatively new committee in the parish. It was formed to promote the ideas of Time, Talent, and Treasure in the parish. I enjoyed my work with this committee because I believe the people need to take their involvement in the parish seriously. We are all called to serve God. I saw my work on this committee as helping the people to see how their are called to help.
Parish Council - My involvement here was mainly to attend the meetings. I did not attend just as an observer. I always tried to let the council members speak first. Once they have spoken, I offered my opinion. I am working to determine exactly when I should speak. I also did some research on the role of parish councils as they are seeking to redo their constitution and wish to determine exactly what they should be doing.
Liturgy Committee - This is an area in which I am very interested in. Liturgy is what everyone sees. We celebrate Mass to give thanks to God. Through our celebration of the Eucharist, the parishioners may see how they are called to act according to the will of God. I was involved in planning of all our liturgical celebrations including children's liturgies. As Catholics, we have rites which we follow. As a committee, we work to bring forth the meaning of the rites and symbols we have.
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) - I enjoyed teaching a few of the RCIA sessions. Assumption has a team of volunteers who take turns leading the sessions. One of the things I have a passion for is to share the faith and knowledge that I have and the RCIA is an excellent way to do this. The catechumens and candidates are seeking faith and understanding and ask excellent questions.
Home/Hospital Visits - We are called to reach out to those in need. I only visited four or five people at home and a couple in the hospital. There are other people in the parish who do most of the this ministry but I would have liked to do more because I believe it is important to be there for the people.
Funeral Ministry - I met with a few families to help them in planning their loved one's funeral. This has been a very different experience from the other work I do. As I met with the families, I find my own abilities weak. However, the Holy Spirit is always present and helps me know what to say to the family during their time of loss.

Ministries that I was Responsible for

Vocations Awareness Team - I worked with a few parishioners to start this committee. The role of the committee is to promote in the parish as awareness of how we all have a vocation and the gifts God gives each of us. As a committee, we seek to increase awareness especially in those called to priesthood and religious life.
(partially responsible for) Baptism Follow-Up - We started a follow up program to baptism. After parents have their children baptized, we can lose contact with them until it is time for their child to start religious education classes. Together with another member of the staff and a few volunteers we sought to fill in this gap. My role was to review different materials available, to draft some material for the parish and to "train" the volunteers to track the baptized children and provide the parents with material at regular intervals.
Holiday Food Baskets - For the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter holiday, Assumption provides food baskets to families in need. This program is not limited to parishioners. We helped 88 families at Thanksgiving and over 75 at Christmas and most of the them are not parishioners. Jesus reached out to the Gentiles in his miracles and teaching. We are called to reach beyond our own parishioners. My role was contact the schools and social to determine what families need help and recruit volunteers from the parish to provide those food baskets. It was a lot of work and takes a fair amount of my time around the holidays but we are all called to feed the hungry (Matthew 25:31-46).

In an event to raise awareness for vocations I was asked to speak at St. John of Rochester School to the elementary school children. While I have done some religious education this was my first experience speaking to the younger children outside of prayer services. So, since this was a new experience I was nervous. Now that it is finished I am grateful for the experience. The students were split into two groups of 1st - 3rd graders and 4th - 6th graders. Despite my fears, the younger group was actually very interested in what I had to say. They had lots of questions. Both groups were very good and I am very grateful for the experience and hope the students got something out of it.

In July of my pastoral year, I visited St. Margaret Mary Church in Appalachian and St. Patrick's in Owego. They are part of the Blessed Trinity/St. Patrick's Parish which includes all of Tioga County. Each parish in the group has adopted a seminarian to pray for. St. Margaret Mary is the parish praying for me so it was a great experience to visit with them and meet the people who are praying for me.

One of the last things for my pastoral year was to make another retreat. This time I chose to make my first directed retreat at Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls, Canada. This was my first time making a directed retreat. In the past I have focused on preached retreats as while I appreciate quiet settings I am not a person drawn to silence. However, I am very glad I have made the retreat as it was the right opportunity for me to bring into focus some of my own spiritual issues that arose while on pastoral year.