“Cura Personalis” – Latin: Care for the Entire Person
When we were developing the programmatic focus of the St. John Life Center, the functions that would breath life and activity not only into a building, but throughout our Church and our community, a special term came to mind. Cura Personalis. Care for the Entire Person. This Catholic term has been used to mean that it is the Catholic responsibility to support every individual, body, mind, and soul. It is our goal to care for each person in our Church with their own unique gifts, challenges, needs and possibilities. Such a direct engagement cannot be done through technology, or lots of activities. It must be done with personal, emphatic communication. In order to create a resource for our Parish Family that will ensure this focus on every individual, regardless of their age, means, or needs, we have established our Nursing Ministry, with Sue Townsend as our lead nurse.
“The healthiest parishioners in Southwest Florida.”
That is the vision for the Parish Nurse Ministry. I’m Sue Townsend and I have been a nurse since 1977 and I have been a parishioner at Saint John’s since 2003. I have sung in the choir for the past 10 years and I feel extremely blessed to lead this ministry. My nursing career has been multifaceted, beginning in Washington, DC, with newborns in a large teaching hospital, to Germany and the Red Cross teaching new moms good care for their babies and developing a grief class for bereaved parents. That was followed by an eight-year stint as the Health Care Aide for a US Congressman from Wisconsin, and most recently here in Naples, I have been the nurse for Home Instead Senior Care, visiting clients checking on Quality Assurance and teaching employees how to be the best caregivers they can be.
Service to others is the primary role of the Parish Nurse. I can create a nursing diagnosis to include suggestions or referrals toward a positive and faith-filled outcome. I can survey the parish community’s health needs. I also plan to conduct educational programs on health and wellness, disease prevention, Alzheimer’s, nutrition, fall prevention, etc. Some of these programs will be outreach programs which will reach into the community, showing St. John’s love to others and possibly bringing more parishioners into our church.
If you have any questions or suggestions for our Nursing Ministry, please contact Sue at: [email protected] or 239-566-8740.
As we develop and start the programs associated with our Build Our Future, Serve Our Past campaign for all members of our Parish Family, like the Catholic Adult Organization and CYO, we need our entire Parish Family to give in order to reach our additional goals. If you have not returned a pledge card yet, here is one for your use right now. Please tear out of the bulletin and place in the offertory basket this week or one of the upcoming weeks once you have a chance to prayerfully reflect on your gift to the future of our Parish Family. If you have any questions, please contact Joe Lichwalla, the Campaign Coordinator at 239-495-2001 or email: [email protected].
You can also learn more information about the Campaign at: www.sjecc.com/future