Faith leaders to pilgrimage as a group

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
Staff of the diocesan Faith Formation Office will be traveling to the four diocesan Jubilee Year of Hope pilgrimage sites starting next week – and they are inviting parish faith leaders to join them on the journey.
 
“Since we were putting resources together for parishes, it was important for us to have some kind of understanding (of the jubilee year), especially as the topic was coming up at different meetings,” Karmen Bower, faith formation director, explained.
 
She and her three faith formation coordinators had read “Jesus and the Jubilee: the biblical roots of the year of God’s favor” by biblical scholar, Dr. John Bergsma and were inspired to embark on their own pilgrimage in the diocese as a small group.
 
Over the next few months, they planned to visit and pray at the four sites – Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City, the Shrine of Trinity Heights – Queen of Peace in Sioux City, St. Joseph Church in Milford and the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend.
 “We read the book and additionally we pushed the information out to the parishes but it’s also important in a sense to model what it is like to live the year of the jubilee and give people ideas of what that is like,” Bower said. “Originally we were going to go out as a team to all four sites and (receive) the indulgences.”
 
It was suggested that the parish directors of religious education (DREs) and faith formation leaders they work with be invited to experience the jubilee with them.
 
“It was a great idea because we are all in this together,” the director pointed out. “It grew into inviting parish leaders to set aside time for themselves throughout the jubilee year in order to experience those moments of prayer and mercy. Hopefully once they’ve experienced that they might encourage others or continue to encourage others to take time to visit the sites.”
 
Parish DREs and faith leaders are invited to meet in Milford next week to visit St. Joseph Church. Participants will have time for private prayer and Father David Hemann, pastor of St. Joseph and St. Mary in Spirit Lake will offer the sacrament of reconciliation. The entire group will also pray the rosary and possibly pray the Stations of the Cross.
 
“We’ll end up with some fellowship,” Bower said, adding that the group will be invited to have a meal together. “It will be a casual environment – we don’t have to worry about staying on tasks. We might visit the peony farm near Milford.”
 
The office has been hosting a midsummer orientation meeting for DREs at the Sioux City Central Catholic Offices that is open to all parish faith leaders to share and support one another. This year, they will include an opportunity to visit the Cathedral of the Epiphany, which is a few blocks away from the diocesan offices.
 
“The idea is to go to Mass and then just have time and some personal prayer at the Cathedral – at least do the prayers for the indulgence,” the director said of the July gathering in Sioux City.
 DREs and parish faith leaders meeting in Storm Lake./Lumen file photoAs the Exultation of the Cross is Sept. 14, the Sept. 18 pilgrimage visit to the grotto will include praying the Stations of the Cross as a group. 
The final stop on the faith leaders’ pilgrimage will be on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary at Trinity Heights. Naturally, they play to pray the rosary as a group.
 
“We wanted to wait to go to Trinity Heights with the new chapel opening. We didn’t want to do it too early,” Bower explained.
 
The faith formation team members including Bower and coordinators Danielle Fennessy, Delores Huemiller and Madeleine McLarty are excited to visit each site and spend time with the parish leaders, the director said.
 
“We’ve been intentional about doing our own formation so we can have a better understanding. As we’ve studied and read, there’s been a growing sense of enthusiasm amongst the team and the ability to share that with others, especially those in the parishes,” Bower said.
 
The faith formation director stressed that all the diocesan faithful should consider participating in the jubilee year whether as a family or as individuals. She stressed that it’s beneficial to “participate in something that connects with the universal church.”

 Read more about the jubilee

“Our church’s jubilee year has been extra blessed with a new bishop and now a new pope,” she said. “It’s a time of great joy in the church. There’s a need to live that joy, live that hope that’s offered in the Gospel.”

The faithful should consider if they are able to take advantage of the jubilee year and witness God’s graces poured out in the diocese this year.
 
“He has blessed us with these beautiful churches, places where we can encounter him,” Bower pointed out. “We don’t know when the next jubilee year will be. Usually, they are every 25 years unless the pope decides to declare one. That’s a long time … so we have to take advantage of it.”
 
Families can learn more about the jubilee year and pilgrimage sites by participating. Resources and family activities related to the jubilee are available at scdiocese.org/jubilee. During the jubilee year of hope, parents might consider initiating conversations with their children about jubilees, indulgences and pilgrimages.
 
“It’s such a great opportunity for families to be able to introduce Catholic culture into their own family culture. Their kids will look back on this jubilee year in five years or 10 years they may remember there was something about a jubilee, but they will all remember going to those sites with their family,” Bower said.
 
Bower said she recently viewed social media videos of numerous parishioners of the Cathedral Parish visiting the grotto and was encouraged by their participation.
 
“I was blown away by how many people received that invitation and committed to this,” she said.