Lay Participation

Coffee Hour takes place Sundays after each of the morning masses in the Parish Center. Volunteers provide and/or serve hot and cold drinks, baked goods and other snacks. Contact the church office for more info.

Office Volunteers answer phones, hand out food bags, welcome visitors, proofread or fold bulletins, stuff envelopes, and just generally help keep things running smoothly. Contact Nancy Vernon for more info.

St. Margaret’s Altar Society—Altar Guild members work behind the scenes on Saturday mornings following the 8:30 AM Mass, cleaning, polishing, replacing flowers, candles and holy water. They prepare the set-up for all services, including memorial masses. Members change frontals, Epiphany green to Lenten purple, and decorate at Christmas and Easter. Contact Paulette O’Malley for more info.

The St. Michael and All Angels Choir sings at the 10:15 AM High Mass on most Sundays, at certain feast day masses, and on other selected occasions. Rehearsals are Thursdays at 7:00 PM and on Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM. (Summer rehearsals are Sundays at 9 AM only.) The choir is always looking for new voices! See the music page, or contact choir director Douglas Leightenheimer.

St. Michael’s Contemplative Group Prayer meets on alternate Saturdays from 9:30 to 11:00 AM in Our Lady of the Desert House of Prayer, north of the church. Come join the group, learn about Christian meditation and enjoy a short social time together. You will find it relaxing, peaceful and rewarding. Contact Jim Reiter.

Subdeacons & Acolytes, Lay readers and Verger—Subdeacons help to celebrate the mass, assisting the priest with the readings and the Eucharist. Acolytes carry torches or the crucifix in procession, stand before the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer, and may act as Chalice Bearer at the distribution of the Eucharist. Taize service The Verger leads the procession at some High Masses, carrying a staff or “verge.” Lay readers read the day’s selections from the Old or New Testament to the congregation. Contact Proscovia King for more info or to volunteer for training.

Taizé is a contemplative service, mostly by candlelight, at the Marian altar. It is made up of music, prayers, spiritual readings, and silence. First and third Tuesdays at 6:45 PM. Contact Jim Reiter.

Ushers welcome congregants and visitors to church, hand out the day’s bulletin, help to find seats when the church is full, assist in controlling the flow of people receiving communion, and maintain counts of attendees for official records as required by the canons of the church. Contact the church office for more info or to volunteer.

Lay Eucharistic Visitors, who are appointed by the Rector, are available to take Communion to parishioners on request. This service is offered particularly to those who are unable to attend mass.  Requests for a visit should be made through the church office at 520-886-7292.

Pastoral Care

The world holds many people in need of pastoral care. Some are members of St. Michael’s, yet many exist in the general community outside the church. Some of our parishioners are unable to get to church and request to be visited, yet others are regular attendees who can be in some sort of need or distress, not necessarily as visible. Need for pastoral care surrounds us.

Ten of our lay pastoral care members have completed approximately thirty hours of Benedictine-Grounded lay pastoral care training provided by Community of Hope International (COHI). In addition to the COHI training sessions, the group has undergone background checks, and completed the diocesan course on Safeguarding God’s Children. The COH pastoral care team also invites various outside speakers to provide ongoing, current information on such varied topics as elder abuse; local services for the sick, disabled, and elderly; loss and bereavement; and confidentiality. A system of debriefing is incorporated within the Community of Hope team, yet with rigid maintenance of confidentiality.

At St. Michael’s presently there are three Lay Eucharistic visitors, two of whom also received the Community of Hope training. The visitors are called to service by the rector and the church-office when needed. Many Eucharistic visits per year are carried out by our Lay Eucharistic visitors, Priests and Deacons. Lay pastoral care givers in general can “shadow” Eucharistic visitors and, if interested, later may be assigned and trained to become Lay Eucharistic visitors via the rector. General aims are to visit in pairs, especially when visiting private homes; thus, shadowing can be helpful as well.

Basic pastoral care at St. Michael’s can be seen in various forms. In fact, presently our interim rector, a specialist in counseling and psychotherapy, makes himself available to particular parishioners who request this support.

Many parishioners indeed are helping others. Although, for example, there is no formal transportation system in place at this time, it is not uncommon to see people being brought to and from church by other parishioners. A general spirit of helping others appears to be prevalent at St. Michael’s. Even at coffee hour, we may find a person, perhaps even a stranger, who needs to have someone just listen. It is possible to bring Christ to another person or awaken the person to Christ within without saying a single word beyond “Hi” or “How’s it going?”.

Almost anything we do at St. Michael’s has a component of pastoral care. Even simply attending services together can help others who are there.