Berlin parish counts on vols

While most parishes in the Albany Diocese encourage volunteers, Sacred Heart parish in Berlin relies on them.

"Everything that needs to be done to keep the church running is done by parishioners," explained Sister Mary Kenan McGowan, RSM, Sacred Heart's parish life director, ticking off a list of parishioners' contributions: bookkeeping, snow-shoveling, janitorial tasks, religious education and the music ministry.

"They clean the church and take care of emergencies," she added. "There was something wrong with the furnace last Sunday, and they took care of that. It really gives them a sense of ownership of the church."

Main difference

Sacred Heart shares its parish life director, bulletin, sacramental minister and many ministries with nearby St. John Francis Regis parish in Grafton.

The 75-family Berlin parish has a small campus sandwiched between two Baptist churches on Main Street. Besides the church, the land houses a parish house, a garage and a small shrine to Mary.

Recent improvements include a wheelchair ramp and a flagpole, both donated by "generous parishioners," according to Sister Kenan.

Pitching in

Members of the parish were trained to run Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest, which they have had to implement twice.

Grafton's volunteer music minister also supplies Sacred Heart's one Mass with song. When he cannot come, musical duties are usually taken up by a local piano teacher who also coordinates the parish's Christmas choir.

Parishioners also assist with transporting the elderly and assisting in the local ecumenical soup kitchen run by a nearby Seventh-Day Adventist church.

Until their reach sixth grade, the parish's children are educated in the parish house by volunteer catechists. The students are then incorporated into Grafton's program.

Restoring

Restoration has been a key word in Berlin for the past few years. In the church, the altar rail was fixed, and a flagpole and permanent handicapped ramp were installed.

Things still need to be done, however; the covered walkway leading from the church to the bathrooms in the parish house may need to be replaced, and trees have to be cut back over the rectory.

The possibility of converting the basement into a youth center is also being considered. Sister Kenan believes that parishioners will also help with some of these improvements.

Years of ministry

Sister Kenan is a veteran teacher in Catholic elementary schools and at Catholic Central High School in Troy. She also boasts 32 years of involvement in the Catholic communities at Grafton and Berlin as a catechist and religious educator.

"Thirty-two years ago, I saw an advertisement saying they needed religious education teachers in Grafton," she said. "I said, 'Grafton, where's that?'"

She now knows it's where Catholics get involved in their church from cellar to dome.

(9/30/04)