Time and Talent

“You don’t have to go places. If you’re willing to do it, the Lord gives you the opportunity right here,” Lucy Lopez explains. “If you have the willingness and say, ‘Yes, Lord, show me what you want me to do,’ then it just happens. So it’s just saying yes to the Lord because we are all called to do something and we need to let the Lord use us where we are.”

Every pastor in Licking County probably assumes Lucy is his parishioner. As Lucy puts it, she is a woman of many churches; she does not observe parish boundaries but rather goes where there is a need and where she feels the Lord is calling her. “You have to ask the Lord, use me where you want me to serve. And I think that is what happened; if someone needs something and I am available, I will go there,” she said.

Lucy shares a story about a time she participated in one Bible study after another. When it was time to sign up for the next one, she felt the Lord ask her when she was going to stop receiving and start giving. That same week she was asked to bring communion to the nursing home and felt the Lord was leading her to give rather than receive. Lucy devotes much of her time to helping immigrants with language barriers, especially navigating the healthcare system and accompanying people to doctor appointments. “Being here is a blessing because it’s a totally different world and needs and culture. I’m here for a reason; He put me here for a reason and I just love it.”

“I have my mission and Carlos has his. We don’t usually do the same thing,” Lucy said as she explained how it works in their marriage to give so much of themselves to so many others. “The Lord is using us, sometimes together and sometimes on our own. Carlos loves the Lord. He loves music and singing for Him so that has been a priority. He has that joy that he wants to sing and praise the Lord.” Carlos leads the music ministry for the Spanish Mass on Sunday afternoons at Blessed Sacrament. He arrives with a case of different instruments that bring the worship to life. Carlos also spends his days driving people who need help with transportation. Lucy explains that he does it with love and they love him in return for the humor and joy he brings. “The Lord put us together because He knew what was coming. We just go because we know it’s from the Lord. We do it for the Lord. We have coffee in the morning and say our rosary and we’ll see each other at night for dinner and that’s it.”

Responding to the Lord with their gift of music is one of the things that connected the Lopezes with the Merkle family. “Peter has a lot of musical talent. He is really wonderful at piano and sits down any moment he has [to play] and he loves it. But then he met Carlos and Lucy and they’ve helped us so many times; it was this sort of friendship, this back and forth giving. Peter realized they didn’t have support for the music ministry, so he worked on all of the songs and worked with Carlos on what they wanted to play,” Jessica said as she described how Peter came to play guitar at the Spanish Mass on Sunday afternoons.

“We have been given more by people in this community than what we feel we have given back. It’s a long list of people who showed up to help fix a fence or other things around the farm,” Jessica shared. “Or even chat with us after Mass so kindly and remember our children’s names and engage them. I think all of that community interaction with people is part of what allows you to give something. It’s the structure of what’s really important for us.”

Our time is tight with so many little ones and they require a lot of our energy and attention. One way I’ve been able to give is through the women’s retreats. I feel like a nice meal is a way to communicate with people their value and how loved they are. And so little things like making breakfast for that and making pies has been one way that I’ve participated.”

Participation in the life of the parish can look different at different stages of our lives. Since her retirement, Barb Harris has responded to God’s call in many different ways.

“I pray about it a lot. You go to adoration and think, ‘God, I’m putting it all out there to you. Give me a sign or show me what you want me to do in some way,’” she says. “Sometimes somebody prompts you and then you pray about it, saying ‘God, what do you want me to do? Open the doors you want to open and close the ones you don’t, or give me a nudge and I will try it.’”

That prayerful discernment has led Barb to take on numerous service and leadership roles in our parish. Her parish resume is long and varied. Inspired by the corporal works of mercy, Barb visits the homebound, buries the dead, and gives food to the hungry. To help those who are spiritually hungry, she is a Eucharistic Minister to twelve people who are homebound.

For Barb, it’s more than a quick trip to bring the Eucharist to people; she sees the value in spending extra time to visit, hear their stories, fill them in on happenings around the church, and is even sensitive to work around their bingo schedules.

Seeing the value it provides for a grieving family, Barb also volunteered to lead the Funeral Luncheon team. Not only does it provide time and space for loved ones to share their tears, joy, and stories after a funeral Mass, but it also provides connection and community for the volunteers who are able to make new friends and reconnect with old ones.

“What could I do to help those families who lost a loved one? When you look at the works of mercy, how can I bury the dead or feed the hungry? How can I visit the sick and imprisoned? You know, some people are imprisoned in their homes in a way because they can’t get out.”

Barb’s service doesn’t stop there. She is a sacristan, a

member of the parish finance council, and has served as a Bible study leader. When discerning her next steps, Barb prays: “I surrender myself and all to You; take care of everything. I know Your plan is better than anything I could imagine. Help me not to hold anything back.”

Despite the long list of activities, Barb frequently turns to prayer to hear God’s will for her so she doesn’t take on too much or go in the wrong direction. Daily Mass and Adoration are essential for helping her to refill her own reserves and to understand God’s will in her life. “I try to go to daily Mass. It’s something I truly enjoy and it fills me up.”

“In all these things, being the sacristan, the finance committee, the funeral luncheons, it is kind of God telling me, ‘This is something that you could do to help.’’’

Kellyn Broderick has heard that same call to help from a young age. Kellyn first realized her voice was a gift when she was in second grade and preparing a song to sing at her First Communion Mass. Kellyn remembers the grandmother of a classmate approaching her to compliment her on her singing voice.

“Sometimes we don’t see that gift in ourselves, and God can use people as instruments to encourage each other to use our gifts. If it weren’t for that grandma when I was in second grade, I may have never known I could sing well enough to be in front of people.”

When it was time to log service hours in preparation of her Confirmation, Kellyn began to sing at church and used her gift again. In her college years, it was her singing voice that brought her back to church after a couple of years away. Again, God used another person to be the messenger. “I don’t even remember how I met her, but she said, ‘Kellyn, you need to come sing with us.’ So I started. That got me back to church. It has always been what God called me to do.”

It was another voice – this time, a familiar one – that invited her to use her gifts as a Cantor at Blessed Sacrament Church. Rick Snoor, the longtime Director of Sacred Music at Blessed Sacrament, had worked with teenage Kellyn when she was earning Confirmation hours. Rick and Kellyn had a chance meeting and, just as her college friend had done years before, Rick invited her to sing with him at Blessed Sacrament. Kellyn has no doubt these voices throughout her life have been God’s voice calling her to use her gifts. “Yeah, it’s clear that this is what God wants me to do.”

Just as with her musical gifts, Kellyn discerned at a very young age that she was called to be an educator, even deciding she wanted to attend Bowling Green State University because of its quality teacher education program. “God gave me a path early on. And I’ve just followed it.”

Kellyn’s career as an educator began in the public schools, spending sixteen years teaching kindergarten, second, and third grade in Newark City Schools. But her path changed this year when she was called to the second grade teaching position at Blessed Sacrament School.

“I loved my time in public school. Every child that came to me, God put with me. God gives me every single one of these children. And then getting here [to Blessed Sacrament] is a whole God thing too. I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be teaching about my faith, and I have more faith than I thought I did.”

After nearly two decades working in a school where she could not overtly share her faith, Kellyn wondered if she might find it challenging to do so here.

“All of it has been surprising, like how easy it is to talk about my faith. I thought that would be a struggle and that praying would be a struggle. That’s been the surprising part, how easy it is to put my faith into my teaching. Maybe that is what I was missing.”

“I think that’s one of the ways we know we’re called, is when it starts to feel easier,” Kellyn says. “He gives us that peace.”