Lay ecclesial ministers prepare for the plentiful harvest

Intermountain Catholic

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Pam Avery

SALT LAKE CITY – A thirst for a deeper understanding of God combined with a desire to help others have led several members of the diocese’s inaugural Lay Ecclesial Minister Formation Program to pursue higher education in response to God’s call. One will graduate in May from the Aquinas Institute of Theology with a degree in Catholic health care, two are enrolled in master’s programs at Creighton University and four are pursuing master’s degrees at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Each has discerned a vocation as a lay ecclesial minister and was among the 20 men and women certified as LEMs last January after a four-year program. The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of Salt Lake City, approved the candidates for certification and blessed them at a special Mass.

"Many people still think that vocations only refer to God’s call to the ordained ministries or to religious life," said Susan Northway, the Diocese of Salt Lake City director of religious education. "In fact, that is a misunderstanding of the baptismal call, because that description excludes the laity. Our responsibility is to discern the nature of our call to service on behalf of the Kingdom of God."

Vocations play a large part in the life of the lay ministers who are pursuing master’s degrees in pastoral studies at the Catholic Theological Union. The five-year program includes online studies as well as a yearly visit to Chicago for a week in June.

Robert Cowlishaw, one of those in the master’s program, feels the Holy Spirit moved him in the direction of his vocation, of which God is the center, he said.

His vocation includes teaching RCIA to young adults at his parish, Saint Francis Xavier in Kearns, as well as conducting a variety of adult education classes there. He also is coordinating the education to bring the new Roman Missal to the parish. "I feel a special responsibility to help awaken the laity to their baptismal responsibilities (priesthood of the faithful) in helping build the kingdom of God on the earth," he said.

Like Cowlishaw, Pam Avery and Sandy Foley teach others while pursuing their master’s degrees in pastoral studies; each is director of religious education at their respective parish, Avery at Saint Ambrose in Salt Lake City and Foley at St. Mary of the Assumption in Park City.

The four-year program that led to certification as a lay ecclesial minister "was like a road map that allowed me to find my way through the difficult questions, giving me the ability to find the answers," said Avery, who has been involved with religious education for 27 years. The master’s degree "is just another layer of information that adds to one’s credibility and expands one’s view," she said. "I may never do anything else but work in religious education, and that’s OK. Or it may provide an opportunity that I never expected. God opened the door to this opportunity so he must have a wonderful plan, so I prayerfully ask him daily to use me wherever he needs me, for his good purpose."

Foley also has put her training as a lay ecclesial minister to use.

"I am more knowledgeable and confident when training catechists as well as assisting parents to prepare their children for sacraments" because of the certification program, she said. "My personal spirituality had deepened [but] … I still have a desire to learn more about Catholicism and the on-line master’s program through Catholic Theological Union is a wonderful way to learn while still working and living in Utah."