Pastoral Care
Caroline Strickland and Fr Nicholas endeavoured to meet bi-monthly during 2022 with a meeting of the larger Pastoral Care Group meeting on the other months.
During the year Fr Nicholas visited 7 Nursing Homes and Retirement Villages on a monthly basis for Holy Communion. Caroline assisted by filling in on a couple of occasions when Fr Nicholas was unavailable.
Home Communions continued throughout 2022 with both of us sharing the visits. Some of these were regular monthly visits and some were only for a short period of time while the parishioner was ill or unable to get to church. Most were conducted in the person’s home, but some were in hospitals. While we hope that these have been a blessing to the person at home or in hospital, they have been a real blessing to both Caroline and Fr Nicholas.
During the year we also instigated taking a small gift, to a person isolating due to Covid. Although this idea was a little belated as quite a few in the Parish had already had Covid. Never-the-less these were well received. The bi-monthly meetings identify those people who are in need of extra care by way of a visit or a phone call.
The parish phone tree has rather petered out, but some folk are very faithfully still phoning others and checking up on them and offering a friendly chat.
Sadly although we tried two times to attend the pastoral care course Lab 1[Learning the Language of Healing], we were unsuccessful due to the course being cancelled.
2023 is starting of in a positive way with one new person interested in doing some pastoral care courses and a suggestion to take another parishioner with us on home visits in order to build further relationships within the parish.
Caroline Strickland
Lay Pastoral Care Minister
Caroline Strickland
Ph: 0413 617 089
