Kathy Ferreira was invited to join the community at Our Lady of the Mount Church in Kalihi Valley and is now an active parishioner there. (Courtesy Catholic Stewardship Consultants)
By Catholic Stewardship Consultants
www.CatholicSteward.com
Invitations come in many forms — colorful cards that arrive in the mail, a telephone call from a friend or a notice posted on social media. Some are unexpected, and some cannot be ignored. This was the case when Kathy Ferreira joined Our Lady of the Mount Church in Kalihi Valley. She has become active in the parish as a lector, Eucharistic minister and chair of the Finance Council.
Father Edgar Brillantes, pastor of Our Lady of the Mount, is a longtime friend. His invitation to Ferreira to join the parish came when she was a member of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Honolulu, serving as a lector and Eucharistic minister.
“‘I’m going to Sts. Peter and Paul,’ I told him,” she said. “He finally said, ‘I wish you’d come to Our Lady of the Mount.’ And, I decided I would.”
That was one invitation.
However, after Ferreira joined Our Lady of the Mount, she saw the need for lectors and Eucharistic ministers. She volunteered for those ministries on her own, not realizing at the time that this, too, was an invitation.
Then Father Brillantes asked Ferreira to serve on the Finance Council and bring her administrative experience to the parish.
“I’m retired,” Ferreira said. “But I’m busy, so I said ‘no.’ He asked again, and Father Edgar is very sweet and persistent. So, I agreed.”
With membership changes in the council, Ferreira was elected chair.
Invitations can arrive in different forms, from different sources. Ferreira recognized the ultimate source.
“It’s God’s calling,” she said. “If he’s calling, there is no way around it.”
Ferreira believes all three of the ministries in which she serves are very important for the parish, but her role as Eucharistic minister carries the most spiritual impact for her.
“When I’m a Eucharistic minister, I am serving God and he’s in my hand,” she said. “Sometimes I get very tearful. He’s chosen me to do it.
“In matters of importance, all the ministries are led by God. But in serving as a Eucharistic minister and being able to say, ‘the body of Christ, the blood of Christ,’ I become tearful sometimes. How very blessed I am to be chosen to serve him in this way.”
Stewardship is typically framed as sharing one’s time and talents with the parish, but Ferreira has a different perspective.
“I never look on it as sharing a talent,” she said. “I always thought of it as serving God, and it’s not so much as sharing your talents, but being able to volunteer. Volunteering is to do what is needed for the parish, and is a calling from God.”
Ferreira has been sending out her own invitations to fellow parishioners to join the lector ministry and Eucharistic ministers, as well as the Finance Council.
“We’re always asking for volunteers,” she said. “It takes a commitment. I’m hoping through God’s will, it will touch people’s hearts.
“I do the best I can to talk to people. I say, ‘Maybe you’ll find when you open your heart, like it opened mine, ways to help him.’ That’s the only way I do it, evangelizing that way.
“I leave it up to the people. I don’t push. I want to be able to educate and inspire them about what it is that I feel as a Eucharistic minister or a lector. I know it’s hard for some people. They don’t want to commit. It’s time — but it’s time. Just time.”