Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms in the parish! I am beyond grateful for the gift of motherhood and am blessed to have an amazing mom, who at the tender age of 84, can still whip me in Scrabble, navigate her smartphone better than I and remember all 27 grandchildren’s birthdays… AND do it with style, grace and beauty. Of the countless blessings our good God has bestowed upon me, a terrific mom is one of the best. God bless all the mothers and may you enjoy this richly deserved day of recognition!
Of course, I cannot celebrate my earthly mom but leave out my Heavenly one, who deserves the most praise, honor and devotion of any single mom ever created in history. If I had a dime for every heartbreak she has fixed, grace she lovingly delivered and visible gift she gave, I would be an incredibly rich woman. To honor and thank her during this special month in which the Church pays special attention to Mary, Parish Health is doing our Miles for Mary challenge. While it is too late to join the split the pot part of the challenge (the deadline was May 1st), all are welcome and encouraged to honor Mary through some type of physical activity combined with prayer. Joining our Tuesday morning SoulCore class at 6 am in Loyola Hall is one way in which that can be accomplished. Julie Schneider does a beautiful job of leading us in the Rosary, while taking us through a series of functional movements. This class can be modified for any fitness level. If you haven’t tried it and would like to learn more, please reach out to me and I would be happy to give more information.
The Iggy 5k committee continues to meet and plan for this momentous event. We would like to announce the our top tier sponsor for the event is Roger Bacon High School. We are so thrilled with this partnership especially since a couple of our committee members have kids currently enrolled at Roger Bacon. We are grateful for their generosity and willingness to help us launch what we hope will turn into an annual event. We can’t wait to share more as details emerge. Registration will be up and “running” in the next few weeks so stay tuned and then sign up!
Parish Health (Ok, a Parish Health husband to be fair…) has created a Sign-Up Genius for our perpetual fasting effort for peace between Russia and Ukraine. If you would like to sign up to offer one day a month of prayer and fasting for this specific intention, please click the link for the May Calendar
(https://bit.ly/StIgnatiusPerpetualFast )
You may certainly sign up for more than one day if you’d like. We want to encourage as many as possible, with the goal to fill each day of the month. Thank you to all who have already signed up.
Finally, after I was hired by Fr. Earl, I enrolled myself in a twelve-week wellness program known as Reform Wellness. The focus of the program is the recognition that we are both body AND soul and that as Christians, we should not neglect one or the other in regard to overall health and wellbeing. This is one of the reasons fasting is strongly encouraged in this program. Fasting, combined with prayer, physically and spiritually heals many things that make us unwell. Because of this focus on health of the soul, as someone in the position of pushing whole person wellness, I have written a piece, published in the Parish Health section of our website and I humbly ask that you visit the page and read it. Read it with an open heart and mind. It comes from a place of humility, honestly and vulnerability. I write it without judgement, but rather as a nurse who wants parishioners fully well and as a mother striving to get her children to Heaven. It’s a daily battle, both vicious and relentless, in a Godless culture and we parents need all the help we can get. Thank you in advance for reading.
May God abundantly bless and protect you.
Kate Rewwer
Parish Health Coordinator
