I
attended Catholic Parish grade schools from 3rd grade to 8th
grade. I was home schooled until I was 7 and entered 3rd grade in
Queens NY. We move back to St. Louis and I attended the Catholic grade school
there in 1951.
In grade school,
we all attended daily Mass and the entire grade school sang the Mass. When I
was age 8, I started serving the 6AM Mass as an Alter Boy. We also served
funeral masses including grave-side prayers. The school had Loreto Nuns, who
lived in a convent next to the school. They were known for education and music.
Classical music played in our grade school lunch room. In 7th grade,
we sang all the funerals in Latin. I had musical talent and I played trumpet in
the grade school band.
I got a
trumpet scholarship to Christian Brothers Military High School, This was the
“family boy’s school” for both sides of my family. I joined St. George’s choir
while in high school and we recorded albums of 6 part Latin hymns. I sang with
the Roger Wagner Chorale clinic at Webster College in St. Louis.
I
attended St. Louis University, also a family school and attended Mass every day
at noon. My physician grandfather hosted bridge games on Sundays for the
Jesuits he met on sick calls.
As a
young father, I was a cantor and a lector at St. Joseph’s Church in St. Charles
County from 1966 to 1975.
We moved
to Salina Kansas in 1975 and joined St. Mary’s Church. I was asked to head the
Liturgy Committee and become the volunteer Choir Director and Cantor.
We
attended a Marriage Encounter Weekend in 1977 and were elected to lead the
Marriage Encounter Community for Salina Kansas.
In 1979,
we were asked to give Engaged Encounter Weekends. We were given an outline and had to write
talks that included our own personal experiences. The team included two couples
and a priest. The senior couple was
married over 10 years and the junior couple was married less than 10 years. We
each gave a brief, very personal talk and then gave the attending couples a
question and had them write their answer in the form of a letter to their
fiancé in a notebook and share their letters. The first question was “Why did I
come here and what do I hope to gain”. The purpose of the weekend was to deepen
their relationship. Weekends started on Friday night and ended on Sunday
afternoon. Couples were housed in dormitories.
We were
elected to lead Engaged Encounter for Western Kansas. The number of team
couples and weekends quadrupled. We shared our outline with the Methodists and
Mormons in Kansas, so they could customize it for their use.
The
Bishop of Salina wanted us to become the Parish Life Couple for the Diocese,
but we had to get 6 kids through college, so we followed the money to Atlanta
where my wife could get her Dental Hygiene degree.
We moved
to Atlanta in 1983 and joined the Atlanta Engage Encounter Community and gave
Weekends until 1993. We gave one weekend per month. Our kids stayed with friends.
We gave
weekends for 14 years, so we gave a total of 168 weekends from 1979 to 1993.
There were about 25 couples on each weekend for a total of 4200 couples.
We were
asked to become volunteer Parish Marriage Ministers in charge of Marriage
Preparation at St. Jude Church in 1993 and served until 2003. We turned this
over to our dear friends in 2003 as planned.
Our
Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter experience had a stunning positive
effect on our 6 children they attribute to our close relationship. We
encouraged them to develop a personal relationship with God and they did. That
was our payday for all the volunteer work we enjoyed doing for decades.
The
volume of what we did might seem excessive, but at the time we felt no stress.
We felt inoculated from the world and our family and work life felt in balance.
We still managed to boat and camp with the kids almost every weekend. Our
church ministry activities balanced us, it was actually a lot of fun and it
strengthened our couple skills. I felt
the same balance playing music on weekends in our St. Louis years.
This is a
case study in volunteer ministry, developing abilities and the rewards that
come from these endeavors. In 1977 we were motivated to focus on our
relationship. We had 6 kids and we were convinced that we didn’t know what we
were doing, so we went shopping for marriage courses. Friends at church suggested that we go on a
Marriage Encounter Weekend. We did this and it worked. That started a stunning
experience working in the “Encounter” movement.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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