A Grieving with Great Hope Workshop will be held Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20 in partnership with Good Mourning Ministry at Newark St. Francis de Sales Church.
Friday’s session runs from 7 to 9 p.m., and Saturday’s workshop begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m.
Grieving with Great Hope is a grief support program and a healing ministry developed by John and Sandy O’Shaughnessy, the co-founders of Good Mourning Ministry, a national Catholic bereavement apostolate.
John O’Shaughnessy is a certified grief counselor and author of five books. Sandy O’Shaughnessy is a director of religious education with a master’s degree in pastoral ministry (bereavement emphasis).
“This (workshop) teaches that grief is a natural reaction to loss, and mourning is our intentional response,” workshop developer and leader John O’Shaughnessy said. “Mourning is what we do with the pain we feel.”
St. Francis de Sales has hosted multi-week Grieving with Great Hope workshops in the past but is bringing the single weekend workshop format to the diocese with the hope of serving even more people suffering with grief.
The weekend workshop will be a condensed version of a five-week workshop where participants share their own stories in a safe and validating environment.
Cost for the weekend workshop, which includes all materials and a box lunch, is $20. Register at www.stfrancisparish.net/grieving.
Columbus Catholic Renewal sponsors Mass, Adoration, talk
Columbus Catholic Renewal is sponsoring a program featuring Mass, Eucharistic Adoration and a talk by Jennifer Whitsett on “The Beauty and the Joy of Sharing the Good News” from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 29 at Columbus Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church, 5225 Refugee Road.
The program will open with Mass celebrated by Father Pat Toner, followed by breakfast, the talk and Adoration, with the sacrament of reconciliation, individual prayer with prayer teams available and worship music by Mike Melliere.
Whitsett earned a graduate certificate in spiritual theology and a spiritual director certification from the Avila Institute. She is a member of the Communion of Catholic Spiritual Directors in the Diocese of Columbus. She serves as speaker, small group leader and prayer minister at several parishes. Her passion is to teach about prayer and accompany souls into deeper intimacy with the Trinity.
For more information, go to www.ccrcolumbus.org or call Patrick Shroyer at (614) 980-3021.
Father Tomson to speak to men’s luncheon club in May
Father Ty Tomson, pastor of Lancaster St. Bernadette and Bremen St. Mary churches, will speak on the traditional Latin Mass at the Catholic Men’s Luncheon Club meeting following the 11:45 a.m. Mass on Friday, May 5 in Patrick Hall of Columbus St. Patrick Church, 280 N. Grant Ave.
Free parking will be available in the Columbus State Community College Grant Avenue parking lot (25-S), across the street from the church. No reservations are necessary. A $12 donation for the lunch and meeting is suggested.
The club’s next meeting will be on Friday, June 2, when Father Adam Streitenberger, vicar for evangelization, will speak about the Columbus St. Thomas More Newman Center.
Contact Jim Gernetzke at jimgernetzke@noslumine.com to sponsor a future luncheon.
Ohio Dominican to hold commencement on May 6
Ohio Dominican University’s 115th commencement ceremony for approximately 200 graduates will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 6, outdoors for the first time in more than a decade on the oval in front of Erskine Hall, the university’s main academic building.
A Baccalaureate Mass will precede commencement at 9 a.m. in Christ the King Chapel, located on the first floor of Sansbury Hall.
For more information, visit www.ohiodominican.edu/Commencement.
Dominican Sisters reach agreement to protect land
The Columbus-based Dominican Sisters of Peace have donated the development rights of the 605-acre St. Catharine Farm in Washington County, Kentucky to a protective easement held by the Bluegrass Land Conservancy, which has pledged to keep it as unspoiled land.
The farm has been cared for by Dominican sisters since 1822, when the first congregation of Dominican women religious in the United States was founded on the site. The growth of residential and commercial building in the area moved the sisters to look for a way to permanently protect the farm.
The easement will preserve the historic view of the farm and protect its large stands of old-growth trees while allowing the sisters to continue to use the land and undertake limited development compatible with a working farm. It also will protect the site of the original St. Catharine convent and school, which burned to the ground in 1904.
The congregation’s ecology center in Columbus, Shepherd’s Corner, is completing the creation of a 1-acre wetlands area that will be used for recreation and educational purposes. The land donation and the wetlands area are part of the congregation’s commitment to treasure and reverence the earth in accordance with Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ (On the Care of Our Common Home).