Nurturing Body and Soul

By Patrick Gribben
Patrick P. Gribben is a member of the Catholic Community of St. Jude, DeWitt, and serves as a member of the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Diocesan Coordinating Commission. He also coordinates the Share the Wealth project.

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If you are fortunate enough to belong to a parish that provides a health ministry, probably the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that ministry mentioned is a pleasant volunteer conducting blood pressure screenings after weekend masses once or twice a month.  If that’s the image you get, then you are seeing only the tip of the “iceberg” because—as important as that screening service is—if you check into the ministry, you very quickly discover that it is very much more than that!

Father Dwight Ezop, pastor of the Catholic Community of St. Jude in DeWitt, sees this ministry as a critical and integral part of the service his parish renders its members.

“Our parish nurse ministry is far and away the single most important outgrowth of the pastoral plan we developed six years ago,” says Father Dwight.  “It touches every aspect of our parish life and every age group—particularly the needs of our elder group.  While the ministry doesn’t render care directly, it provides valuable assistance in helping the elderly make sense of the various health options that seem to confront them so often.  Without this knowledgeable help, these health care issues can be bewildering for our seniors.”

"For other segments of our parish membership,” he adds, “the health ministry provides equally important counseling and guidance services on an individual basis or in a group setting.  It covers the gamut from making available natural family planning information, to providing counseling on alternatives to abortion, as well as designing and conducting programs that integrate improved physical health with our efforts to improve spiritual well being.”

According to information available through the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is one of the fastest growing ministries in parishes across the country.  It is estimated that there now are some 6,000 parish nurses active in church-based health ministries.  The awareness that physical well being goes hand-in-hand with spirituality is as old as religion itself but the renewed emphasis on linking the two began to gather momentum in the mid-1980’s.  That’s when the promoting of parish nursing as a staff function was introduced in the Chicago area, largely through the efforts of a Lutheran minister there, Rev. Granger Westberg.  Working with Lutheran General Hospital, parish nurses were provided to six local parishes—two of which were Catholic.  The practice of parish nursing took off dramatically from there.    

At St. Jude’s, Terry Humenik, RN, volunteered to staff the ministry about four years ago.  This effort was in addition to her “day job” as an IV therapy nurse with the Lansing-based Sparrow Health System.  Recently, she has left in-patient care to become a home hospice nurse.  Like most of the parish nurses she knows, Terry serves voluntarily and estimates that she gives about 10 to 12 hours per week tending to the health needs of her fellow parishioners.  She’s convinced the ministry could easily absorb much more time if it were available. 

Terry’s interest in becoming a parish nurse followed shortly after she made a mid-life career change to become a registered nurse.  Prior to that she had been employed in a related medical supply field.  The opportunity to return to school came as a very “mixed blessing” when, after a severe accidental fall, she was left with a broken leg that took nearly six years to heal fully and properly.  Confronted with a long recuperative period, she decided to return to MSU and earn her nursing degree.  Not long after she graduated, her husband, Joe, suffered a serious heart attack and working as a full-time registered nurse became a matter of necessity.  Her husband passed away about two years later and, in her own words,

“I was left in a situation where I just simply had to do something with my spare time or I would have become a basket case.  That was when I volunteered my services for the parish nurse position which had remained open since the completion of the pastoral plan two years earlier.  Father Dwight knew I had always wanted to be involved with parish work.  We both saw this as a perfect fit and he welcomed me with open arms.”

To prepare her for her ministry, she completed a 30-hour certification course offered at Calvin College.  In light of the mainly non-denominational character of the ministry, she chose the Grand Rapids program over that offered at University of Detroit Mercy for convenience sake.  Both programs are similar and highly regarded.

Noting that this ministry crosses organized religious boundaries, Terry says, “It has a place in all religions.  I know Moslems and Jews who have become involved as well as Catholics and Protestants.  Some even divide their work day serving in two different churches.

“Curing the sick and infirm was an important part of Jesus’ ministry on earth.  Caring for the sick remains a Corporal Work of Mercy and so our church embraces this ministry.  It is a source of great satisfaction to me that I can capitalize on my choice of life’s work and apply it to this most sorely needed and rewarding ministry,” she adds.

In her role at St. Jude’s, Terry’s activities cover a very broad range.  She writes a weekly column on health-related affairs for the church bulletin.  Twice monthly, she helps organize meetings of parishioners who knit and stitch prayer shawls and quilts for ailing parishioners.  The participants pray as they work and, when finished, they each impart their special blessing on the garment for the person who is to receive it.  In Father Dwight’s words, “These projects provide for a prayerful attitude for those times in life when one is most needed.  The shawls and quilts create an environment permeated by prayer.”

An extremely important part of Terry’s ministry is assisting seniors with counseling in meeting their health needs, and in acquainting them and their families with the adult foster care facilities and other services that are available in the area.  She strives to help them make their care choices intelligently in a way that is best for them.

This importance of this part of her ministry has been borne out by Medicare’s prescription drug program which was introduced a couple of years ago.  “There are a myriad of benefit structures offered,” she notes.  “Choosing the coverages to match the prescription drug needs of their various illnesses is a particularly daunting task for our people when they become eligible for this benefit  This is truly a case of where ‘one size does not fit all.’”

She is careful to stress that she is not a care provider and offers no rehabilitative therapeutic services directly.  About the closest she comes to this is when she sets up programs that parishioners can follow to improve their own health.  A very successful effort along these lines was the “Walk to Jerusalem” project she organized several years ago and was featured on the Diocese of Lansing website in its “Sharing The Wealth” program in September, 2006. 

In the simulated trek to Jerusalem, several hundred St. Jude parishioners undertook a walking exercise program with all miles recorded weekly.  It was a Lenten activity and the simulation represented the distance between DeWitt and Jerusalem.  The parishioners not only walked an equivalent distance but had enough miles left over for the round trip and much more!  Progress reports were issued weekly and it also included an educational component to familiarize the pilgrims with the areas along the route as they were in Jesus’ time and as they are today.

When it comes to care and therapy, Terry sees her role as an educational one to enable St. Jude parishioners to make their own choices—complex ones that are in their own best interests.  Part of that educational effort includes helping ailing parishioners and their families understand the importance of having durable powers of attorney so that proper decisions can be made when they are of the utmost importance.  Terry and her counterpart at Redeemer Methodist Church, also in DeWitt, routinely offer joint workshops on the importance of having these documents.  Another successful ecumenical activity undertaken jointly by a number of DeWitt area churches are the community blood donor drives which routinely are held every eight weeks.

And then, of course, there are the ubiquitous but very important blood pressure checks that we have come to associate with this ministry.  Terry has two “regulars” and a cadre of “on call” professionals to draw from for these twice monthly checks. 

“We need staff to cover all masses on the scheduled weekends,” she notes, “and we need a good supply of qualified volunteers because everyone is not always available.  We need to have nurses and other healing art professionals to do the checking.  I even have a physician who regularly volunteers!  We seek volunteers who are familiar with ways to alert those being checked when their pressure level is elevated.  That becomes an issue because our experience shows that just about every weekend we have someone who needs to be seeking care after the results are measured.  For those getting screened that news usually is a surprise and can be scary enough… no sense in frightening them further.”

Terry also provides CPR training and played a major role in the parish acquisition of an emergency automatic external defibrillator.  That latter instrument proved to be a “lifesaver” after it was purchased not long ago.  But the litany of what Terry’s ministry includes seems limitless and we have not exhausted that list here by any means.  At the same time, one can get a good idea of the breadth of this role from just these brief sketches.  Little wonder then that Father Dwight values the parish nurse concept so highly. 

Many parishes throughout the Diocese of Lansing have embraced this ministry.  Others wishing to explore this further can get in touch with Terry as shown below.  Further, there is also a national coordinating agency—The International Parish Nurse Resource Center—which can be of significant helps in pursuing this ministry further.  The Marquette University College of Nursing offers seminars and ongoing support for parish nurses.  Information on these contacts is presented below.

At the outset, we used the analogy of an iceberg to introduce the myriad of not-so-obvious roles in which this ministry gets involved.  Perhaps the picture of duck swimming on a lake would have been more appropriate.  On the surface, the duck seems to be floating tranquilly, with everything going smoothly.  However, beneath the surface, there frequently is some furious paddling going on just to make everything operate so smoothly!  That would be more akin to how the parish nurse/health ministry goes about its important work

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Contact Information:

Terry Humenik, RN
Catholic Community of St. Jude
409 Wilson Street
DeWitt, Michigan  48820
Telephone:  517-669-8341

The International Parish Nurse Resource Center Website:  www.parishnurses.org

Marquette University College of Nursing:  nursing@marquette.edu