The Pastoral Care Ministry is an outreach ministry of Saint Mary Magdalene Catholic Church that allows our lay Eucharistic Ministers to bring communion to the sick and homebound.

This is a great ministry that our faith provides which allows Catholics, unable to attend mass due to illness and mobility issues and who are properly dispensed, to receive our Lord at their home or care facility. We wanted to provide you with the testimonies of some of these lay Eucharistic Ministers of Holy Communion describing what their participation in this ministry means to them and how it has affected their own lives and the lives of those they serve. Enjoy.

St. Catherine of Siena was born during the outbreak of the plague in Siena, Italy on March 25, 1347. She was the 25th child born to her mother, although half of her brothers and sisters did not survive childhood. Catherine herself was a twin, but her sister did not survive infancy. Her mother was 40 when she was born. Her father was a cloth dyer.

At the age of 16, Catherine's sister, Bonaventura, died, leaving her husband as a widower. Catherine's parents proposed that he marry Catherine as a replacement, but Catherine opposed this. She began fasting and cut her hair short to mar her appearance.

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament was born as Helena Kowalska, in Glogowiec, Leczyca County, north-west of Lódz in Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of 10 children to a poor and religious family.

Faustina first felt a calling to the religious life when she was just seven-years-old and attended the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. After finishing her schooling, Faustina wanted to immediately join a convent. However, her parents refused to let her.

Is the celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead. It is celebrated on Sunday, and marks the end of Holy Week, the end of Lent, the last day of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday), and is the beginning of the Easter season of the liturgical year. As we know from the Gospels, Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day following his crucifixion, which would be Sunday. His resurrection marks the triumph of good over evil, sin and death. It is the singular event which proves that those who trust in God and accept Christ will be raised from the dead.

Hello St. Mary Magdalene,

Happy Palm Sunday! We begin Holy Week by accompanying Christ into Jerusalem. He enters in glory amid songs and hymns of praise and yet, only four days later, those same voices that now cheer for our Lord in glory and majesty will be the same voices that cheer for His death! How moving and yet telling too about the human heart, especially how often we turn away from the Lord through sin. This most sacred and powerful week highlights for us the full weight that Our Lord paid for our sins and His most splendid victory as He rises in glory on Easter.

Several years ago, I followed the “take something up” opportunity during lent and made a weekly adoration commitment. I didn’t have much experience with adoration and had never fully understood the practice. Armed with meditation and reflection booklets composed for adoration, enriched by YouTube descriptions, and equipped with my journal, I began my commitment. My biggest challenge was “Be still and know that I am God.”

Flagstaff, AZ The second Sunday of Lent, focused on the Gospel account of Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop, found SMM's Schola Justitiae with fresh take on "garments white as snow." 20 choristers plus crew of chaperones spent the weekend in an old convent-turned-retreathouse amidst frozen blanket thicker than locals have seen in years. "It's like we entered Narnia!" quipped chorister.

Hello St. Mary Magdalene,

Happy Lent! As we begin this Lenten journey I pray that the Lord will guide you through your disciplines and lead you closer to Him. Lent is a powerful time to draw closer to the Lord and journey with Christ throughout His time in the desert, fasting, praying, and making intentional sacrifices so that God’s Providence would be more apparent to us in our daily life. Traditionally the Church recommends three practices for Lent that help us to mortify ourselves spiritually and physically: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Ash Wednesday is one of the most popular and important holy days in the liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday opens Lent, a season of fasting and prayer. Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter Sunday, and is chiefly observed by Catholics, although many other Christians observe it too. Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting.

Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love." Although not much of St. Valentine's life is reliably known, and whether or not the stories involve two different saints by the same name is also not officially decided, it is highly agreed that St. Valentine was martyred and then buried on the Via Flaminia to the north of Rome.

Also known as Agatha of Sicily, is one of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of the Catholic Church. It is believed that she was born around 231 in either Catania or Palermo, Sicily to a rich and noble family. From her very early years, the notably beautiful Agatha dedicated her life to God. She became a consecrated virgin, a state in life where young women choose to remain celibate and give themselves wholly to Jesus and the Church in a life of prayer and service. That did not stop men from desiring her and making unwanted advances toward her. However, one of the men who desired Agatha, whose name was Quintianus, because he was of a high diplomatic ranking, thought he could force her to turn away from her vow and force her to marry.

Later this week (Thursday February 2nd) the Church celebrates the Presentation of the Lord, a feast with deep scriptural and ritual roots. Ritually, this feast, prior to the Second Vatican Council, marked the end of the Christmas Season and was known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Eucharistic Adoration was not something that I had been exposed to, even growing up Catholic, regularly attending Mass on Sundays and having attended Catholic Grade School.

Having been a parishioner here at St. Mary Magdalene for nearly 19 years, I have been blessed to spend time with the Lord routinely over the last 5 or so years in the Adoration Chapel. I have chosen the early morning hours of 1am on Sunday mornings, mostly because of my hectic last minute work travel schedule.

Christ is born to save us and we are filled with joy. I pray that Christmas may fill you with great joy and that your celebrations with family and friends may be safe and life giving. Today God’s great gift to us is made manifest as we now can see Him face to face in Christ made flesh. We now join Mary in that beautiful gaze on her newborn son; a look of tenderness and love that we never want to end as God looks back at us. How beautiful and tender a gaze to look into the eyes of the newborn Christ and see God staring back. Christ already makes a gift of Himself to us as He enters into our brokenness and sin in order to set us free.

Eucharistic Adoration, from my personal experience, is truly a glimpse of Heaven in this Earthly life. I felt a tug in my heart that Jesus was calling me to draw closer to Him. Adoration has been a tangible way for me to do just that.

My time in Adoration each week allows me to renew my sense of purpose and a visible reminder that I am loved beyond all measure. It is a time of respite away from the chaos of daily life, a time of reflection of joys and sufferings. It has also given me dedicated time to quiet all the noise that our hurting world wants to impress upon me.