Ministry conference focuses on the family

More than 700 Catholics from throughout the Diocese of Corpus Christi attended the 26th annual Ministries Day Conference on Jan. 10. This year's conference, titled "The Family Fully Alive," was dedicated to the family.

"The family is the church in the home," Bishop Michael Mulvey told participants. "It is rooted in the sacramental beauty of the love shared between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife."

Bishop Mulvey thanked conference participants for coming to learn how to become better ministers in their parishes so that they could better assist him, priests, deacons and religious. He said he was grateful not only for what they did in ministry but "I'm most grateful for who you are–people of faith." The bishop asked the participants to "be present for each other" and to "let Christ be alive" in them.

The featured speaker, James Healy, Director of the Center for Family Life Ministry in Joliet, Illinois, said those in ministry "have to know" what they are calling people to, while not being anxious about it.

Among those taking part in the conference were people interested in learning more about their Catholic Faith, especially those who do ministry in the Church, including catechists, youth ministers, young adult leaders, liturgical and music ministers, Bible study leaders, Catholic schoolteachers, RCIA teams, adult education leaders and evangelization teams.

The event featured more than 40 workshops and presentations in both English and Spanish. Among the topics covered were faithful citizenship, the Gospel of life, the family as the domestic church, the sanctity of the family, catechesis, stewardship, vocations, youth, young adults and more.

"The Church is here to help the family rediscover its purpose and strengthen its place in society. The family needs the Church and the Church needs the family," Bishop Mulvey said. "We must look at the family for what it can be, what it should be, but also in the reality of what it is. We must stay focused on why God created the family, not on the redefinition of the family that government and society try to impose on us."

Winners of the Office of Vocations essay contest were announced at the conference. They are: Teddy Trevino, a fourth grader at St. Gertrude School in Kingsville, in the elementary school division; sixth grader Sirena Vela from St. Joseph School in Alice, in the middle school division; and Ryan Fleming, senior at Orange Grove High School and parishioner of St. Frances of Rome Church in Agua Dulce, in the high school division.

Eighteen individuals completed the required study to fulfill commissioning requirements for the St. Paul School of Catechesis. They are, Eva Amaro, Winifred Lee Bockholt and Mark Steven Bolu, Most Precious Blood School; Janet W. Daehne, St. Pius X School; Sonia Davila and Donna Marie Metz, Holy Family School; Bridgid Dillashaw, Johnson Dillashaw and Cecilia Gamboa, Santa Maria Mission; Lucy H. Garcia and Adelaida R. Segovia, Christ the King; Martha A. Gomez, Sister Flaviana Macasling, OP and Sister Adela Sereno, OP St. Anthony School; Catherine Marie Harrel, St. Philip the Apostle; Jackie Sepulveda Holt, St. Patrick School; Ann Marie Lippincott, St. Thomas More; and Dale Pittman, St. Theresa in Corpus Christi.

Another 14, received their five-year re-commissioning, including, Belinda Aguilar, Cathy (Katie) Lynn Brown and Beverly Ann Lanmon, St. Gertrude School; Katherine K. Barnes, Sacred Heart School; Susan Alice Canales, Christ the King; Sister Lucia Rosa D'Cunha, St. Joseph in Corpus Christi; Belinda Espinosa, Anna Munoz and Lisa Perez, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Academy; Frances Grace Lozano and Ciria Puente, Central Catholic Elementary; Cynthia A. Ramirez, Incarnate Word Academy Elementary; Priscilla D. Schneider, St. Elizabeth School; and Marian Rose Swetish, St. Patrick in Corpus Christi.