Moms group forms at Webster County's Holy Trinity 

By LORI BERGLUND
Special to Lumen Media
            
Julie Flattery is a woman of intentionality. When she and her husband, Anthony Flattery, moved to Fort Dodge with their newborn daughter, Sophie, two years ago, she purposefully began looking for young moms like herself.
 
“It’s not good for a mom to be alone,” Flattery said. “Women need friendships. Moms need other moms in the same season of life.”
 
Flattery is spearheading a new moms group at Holy Trinity Parish to bring like-minded young, Catholic moms together. An informational table is planned after Sunday Masses on Mother’s Day, May 10, and a kick-off event at a local park will be coming in June, according to Flattery.
            
“My vision is to be a group called the St. Gianna Mothers, under the patronage of St. Gianna Molla,” explained Flattery. “As moms, we need to be together, and we need to be praying for our children together.”
            
Flattery hopes to bring mothers with at least one child under the age of five together once each month for a children’s play date. She said it would be a fun time for kids to run and play, and also time to join moms’ and children’s voices together in prayer. She hopes to alternate the days of the week and times so that both working moms and stay-at-home moms can reap the benefits of shared time with other moms.
            
In addition, the St. Gianna Mothers would have a social night each month just for moms.
            
Julie Flattery with daughter Sophie. “We could discuss a podcast, pray together and just enjoy some grown-up time,” Flattery noted.            The goal of bringing moms together to share experiences is a driving force for Flattery.
            
“It’s easy in this season of life, caring for your little ones, for your own life to feel small — to feel hidden — but we are actually doing the most important work we could do in raising our children. Our vocation isn’t meant to be lived in isolation. God created us for interdependence. He created us to live in community together,” she said.
            
A Syracuse, N.Y., native, Flattery noted that she was not raised Catholic, but her journey into the faith demonstrates the intentional nature of her life. She graduated from Villanova University, earning a degree in biology, and it was there — at the Alma Mater of Pope Leo XIV, that she joined the Catholic faith.
            
“I was going through a hard time in life, and a friend invited me to Mass,” she recalled. “When I was hesitant to go, he said, ‘It’s one hour of our life, and if you don’t like it, you never have to go again, but it could change everything about who you are.’”
            
That one hour ended up changing everything.
 
“I went to Mass and I just saw joy, and this deep feeling in my heart that I want to have that. Villanova is a very joyful campus,” Flattery said.
 
She entered the Catholic Church at Villanova, long before she met her husband, who is a 2011 graduate St. Edmond High School in Fort Dodge. After living in Colorado for a time, the couple settled down in Fort Dodge two years ago.
 
With a little one in tow, and in what was for her a brand new community, Flattery immediately began seeking out other young moms like herself.
 
“I was looking around the parish and saying, ‘Where are the young moms?’” she recalled.
            
Flattery joined some other moms’ groups within the community but wanted to establish one specifically for Catholic moms.
            
“We have thousands of parishioners, and great young moms, I thought, ‘We can do this,’” she said.
            
Leaning on other moms is something as old as time, and Flattery is hoping to build on that tradition with the St. Gianna Mothers.
            
“I don’t have the experience of growing up in a family of practicing Catholics,” Flattery said. “I very intentionally in Colorado embedded myself in Catholic families that I admired — who I saw living family life well. I was a youth group leader for middle schoolers.”
 
There was also an active moms’ group at her Colorado Catholic parish and, under the patronage of St. Gianna Molla, Flattery hopes to bring that kind of supportive group for moms of young children at Holy Trinity.
            
A 20^th century Italian saint, St. Gianna Molla would be of the age to have been a great grandmother to today’s young moms, having lived from 1922 to 1962. She courageously rejected an abortion recommended by her physician, and ended up giving her own life so that her child might live. Her husband, Pietro, raised the couple’s four children, never remarried and died in 2010. She is the patron saint of mothers, physicians and the unborn.
            
Flattery has a favorite quote from St. Gianna Molla, one that inspires her to bring moms together in their important work of raising the next generation: “Love your children. In them, you can see baby Jesus. Pray for them a lot and every day put them under Holy Mary’s protection.”
Knowing that being a mom is a big job, Flattery invites all moms of young children to come together as this new group forms to pray, play and laugh together. For more information, contact Cheryl Sherry at the parish office, (515) 955-6077 or Flattery at (315) 559-6276.
 
Lori Berglund is a freelance writer based in Dayton. She is a member of Holy Trinity Parish of Webster County.
 
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