Renew participants find family in group

This Renew 2000 small faith-sharing group is typical of the hundreds meeting all over the Albany Diocese: Its membership includes men and women whose ages range from 40s to 80s. Some are veteran Church volunteers; others aren't even Catholic. Many are natives of the Summit area, but some are "transplants" to the Albany Diocese.

Bernadette Baumann and her husband, Richard, are two of the latter. When they moved from Long Island five years ago, said Mrs. Baumann, it was a shift from a parish so large that "nobody knew who you were" to "a much warmer feeling" at small St. Anna's. After becoming involved in several parish ministries, facilitating a Renew group was a natural next step.

For Annette Hornauer, a mother of three and grandmother of three, choosing Renew was making a connection. "I'm getting older," she explained. "This is contact with other people of the same faith. It's nice to be with people who think the same way you do."

Joining a Renew group was part of a search for spirituality for Carol and Ronald Maurice. He is a Catholic and his wife is Lutheran, and the pair had often discussed faith on their own and gone to each other's churches. Joining a Renew group "enhanced our discussions at home," said Mrs. Maurice. "It gave us new perspectives."

The Summit group members boasted that while other Renew groups are less verbal, theirs had no trouble opening up to one another. They remembered the first time their group met last fall."It was awkward, but by the end, we were all fine," Mrs. Baumann reported. "Nobody held back with anything."

Several group members knew each other because their children had attended school together, but answering questions from Renew booklets taught them much more. "It's nice to get together with people on the same level," said Mrs. Hornauer. "A lot gets shared."

One topic the group discussed during Renew's first season was violence in society and their fears for today's youth. Mrs. Maurice noted that opening up gave her the courage later to ask her group to pray when her daughter-in-law was having trouble at work. "That's not the kind of thing you go up and say to your next-door neighbor," she remarked. "I felt comfortable with these people."

Participating in Renew has affected each member of the group. Mrs. Hornauer is now teaching her grandchildren their prayers; Mrs. Baumann said that she and her husband "look deeper into things," thinking about their beliefs in everyday life.

Best of all, the members agreed, their Renew group has become a family within their parish family. "You go [to church] on Sunday and look for the people who are part of your group, and maybe sit with them instead of someone else," said Mrs. Maurice.

"I knew the people in the parish were nice. But after going through this, I think they're even nicer," said Mrs. Baumann. "You go to church now and feel like you have family members there."

The group began its second season together this week with three new members and couldn't wait to get started. The first season "convinced me to go back again," said Mrs. Hornauer. "It's not just a social thing -- it's deeper than that."

(For information on Renew 2000, call your parish or the diocesan Renew office at 453-6646.)

(02-25-99) [[In-content Ad]]