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Not your usual rookie: At 58, Father Martin is pastor for the first time
By Kelley Baldwin
At home in his office is an eclectic music collection that includes jazz and
classical pieces, Gregorian chant, Broadway show tunes and even a few songs by
folk singer Joni Mitchell.
After spending a few moments with him, one quickly learns that Father Martin
DeMeulenaere’s life and career have been as varied as his taste in music.
It might be considered unusual for a man to embark on a new career well into
his 50s, but Father Martin is an unusual man. While he has spent the past 30
years as a monk, he has bounced from several types of positions and only recently
accepted his first head pastor assignment with St. Gregory Barbarigo parish in
Maryville, one of 85 parishes within the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City - St.
Joseph.
Born and raised in the Kansas City area, Father Martin graduated from Conception
Seminary College and joined the monastery in 1970. Due to the community’s need
for help in the infirmary, he headed to Springfield to attend nursing school.
“We needed someone in the infirmary, and as I had done some orderly work
while in college it seemed like a good fit,” he said. “I call it my
‘mole existence,’ taking care of the monks in the infirmary and then
moving back and forth through the tunnel, and working in the kitchen as the director
of food services, planning menus and supervising the staff making sure everybody was
fed.”
As the years went by, he earned a master’s degree in theological studies
from the Washington Theological Union back East, concentrating on spiritual direction
because “more and more people were calling me to do that in terms of ministry.”
He spent several years hosting retreats and served as a spiritual director to
Conception Seminary College students.
“Then I found myself in very difficult times and needed to get away, so I
went back to Springfield and became a hospital chaplain at St. John’s Regional
Health Center,” he said.
After being called back to Conception as the abbey’s vocation director,
Father Martin was on the move again and headed back to his roots in Kansas City as a
chaplain with St. Joseph’s Health Center. A majority of his work centered on
patients in the intensive care unit.
“Having been a nurse I identified so well with the staff,” he said.
“It was such a wonderful time in ministry, but working in such a difficult
place, witnessing death – sometimes several times a day – took its toll.”
Jang Yong Park, a seventh grader in the St. Gregory Barbarigo Parish
religious education classes, holds the Bible for Benedictine Father Martin DeMeulenaere to bless it. Reading in shifts, the Maryville parish read the
entire Bible in preparation for a community campaign.
Since he had been doing weekend work with the Cathedral of the Immaculate
Conception in Kansas City, he asked for and received the abbot’s permission to
transfer there full-time. He stayed for a few months before receiving his latest
directive – St. Gregory’s in Maryville.
“I yearn for some stability,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have
it now.”
While the route may have been exhausting, it was those varied experiences that
led Abbot Gregory Polan to recommend Father Martin for the post at St. Gregory’s.
“I knew he had a lot of pastoral experience with his work in hospitals and
other parishes,” Abbot Gregory said. “He has such a creative sense about
him, and I know he’ll exercise those creative skills and work well with the
parishioners.”
Father Martin's readings of the Gospel have been a hit at children's Masses.
As St. Gregory’s leader, Father Martin oversees a congregation more than
2,400 strong and St. Gregory’s Catholic School, which enrolls almost 175
students in preschool through eighth grade.
The parish is a busy one, providing outreach ministries within and outside the
community, and it just recently kicked off a three-year community improvement
campaign to raise funds for building renovations and church activities.
“There’s just so much life in this community and it’s so
vibrant, I often say I’m just trying to keep up,” Father Martin said.
“Every day is a new experience, and the learning curve is steep.”
However, he is committed to making time for himself after having learned years ago
that he can’t do it all.
“I was suffering from burnout and depression but wasn’t aware of it,”
he said. “Group therapy helped me realize the importance of necessity, of taking
care of myself. It helped to unlock the door and taught me that sometimes there are
things that I simply can’t do.”
Father Martin annoints parishioner Edmund Brady.
His schedule as pastor can vary but usually includes daily Mass, teaching religion
to the older students at St. Gregory’s twice a week, visiting the ill or
homebound, working with Catholic Charities, attending diocesan meetings in Kansas
City and accepting the occasional dinner invitation at a parishioner’s home. The
parish is also in the midst of searching for a new school principal and a youth
director.
“There are a lot of things to be done, but I don’t have to do them
all,” he said. “I just try to keep up.”
As a pastor Father Martin said he simply enjoys the people the most.
“I’m intrigued by other people’s stories, their histories,”
he said. “Being allowed into their lives; their trust to share with me. Being
given permission to ask the questions. Being able to be with them during their moments
of joy – the baptisms and the weddings – as well as during their moments
of grief. It’s having the whole range of life.”
And members of the congregation are noticing, and welcoming, Father Martin’s
interest in their lives.
“He has a sense of listening, of compassion,” said John Jasinski, who
has been a parishioner since 1986. “He uses all the skills he’s gathered
over the years, and he’s both a pastor and a friend who truly cares.”
As a new pastor, Father took time to observe and listen to the congregation’s
concerns and their plans for the future. Fortunately, those plans and his are nearly
identical.
His priorities include improving the liturgy, focusing on the children and
continuing education and faith formation.
“My goals matched almost perfectly with their strategic plan,” he said.
Sue Dorrel, St. Gregory’s business manager, agrees that Father Martin has been
a great fit for the church and its campaign.
“He’s allowed the people to continue to develop their church,” she
said. “Everything he sees as important has been important to us. The abbot did a
great job connecting us.”
The campaign, Building Faith by Building Community, centers more around its
parishioners getting involved than it does on the pledge card.
The parish has made the youth of the congregation its number one priority, which
includes hiring a full-time youth director. In the past, volunteers have orchestrated
such activities.
“We discovered our youth want to be more involved with the church. Right now
they are finding spaces and places with other churches because they provide activities
that we can’t,” Dorrel said. “They want to be involved with mission
events, service projects, hanging out and talking about their faith.”
Funds from the campaign will help the church do just that. In addition to a new youth
director, plans call for renovations to buildings to provide space for the middle and
high school students to meet and worship.
St. Gregory’s also hopes to raise money to replace outdated and inefficient
air conditioning and heating systems, increase contributions to existing endowments
and reconfigure areas within the church, the office and the rectory to provide more
opportunities for worship and gathering. Many groups now meet off-site or in homes
because there is simply no space available at the church.
“Our young adults and young married couples are hungry for spiritual
growth,” Dorrel said. “We want to be able to provide a place to host
programs and events where people can learn more about their faith.”
Dorrel stresses that the initiative is unlike most capital campaigns in that they
aren’t raising money for a new building or focusing on collecting a certain
amount of money. Instead, their main focus is on providing opportunities in which
their members can gather as a family and get to know each other.
“We want people to share in the vision, to speak out, to communicate,”
she said.
Jasinski, who also serves as a campaign co-chair, said the focus on people is what
drew him to the campaign.
“It’s a different kind of campaign in that it’s faith-based,”
he said. “We want to bring people into the circle of the community, those who
haven’t been as involved, and to reach out to other faith communities.”
Dorrel feels that trying to reach everyone is a task worth undertaking.
“It really is a gift of faith,” she said. “The people who are
involved want to get everyone involved. How do we encompass all? How do we amend any
hurt feelings? We need to visit people to make sure they know our arms are open and
we want them to be here.”
Father Martin poses with Kathy Wiederholt's kindergarten class after
presenting them with school t-shirts.
Father Martin has been kept very busy since July, attending campaign events to
generate ideas and answer questions about what the church is trying to accomplish.
“We’ve met in bowling alleys, in pubs and in people’s homes to
talk about the dreams and visions for the future of our community,” he said.
“Sometimes we had him at two or three events on a night,” Dorrel said.
“But it turned out to be a great way for him to meet people, get to know them
and enjoy a meal with them.”
As of December, only two weeks after the campaign officially kicked off, the parish
has raised more than $700,000, well on their way to their goal of $2 million.
“I’m asking people to dream for the sake of the community,” Father
Martin said. “I can’t tell them how much to give or to pledge. It’s
between them and God how much they can afford. For some people, it’s a real stretch
of faith.”
More than 300 members are volunteering their time and talents to make sure the
campaign is a success. Among them is Denise Jasinski, John’s wife, who has been
involved with the campaign since its early stages.
“I was raised to believe that it’s vital to get involved where you
live,” she said. “A lot of people at St. Gregory’s feel it’s a
wonderful place. We see our kids growing up here, and we want them to be a part of
Maryville. It’s important that we provide for all aspects of our community.”
Scandals and credibility issues among those involved with the Catholic Church have
been a distraction in the past, but Father Martin believes the diocese is under great
leadership in Bishop Raymond J. Boland.
“He’s an honest, straightforward type of speaker who challenges people
to think for themselves,” he said. “The truth is more elusive that we were
led to believe, and not all issues are black and white. So I’m very grateful for
the leadership he’s providing.”
On a local level, Father Martin is concerned with events such as drugs in schools,
teachers engaging in inappropriate relationships with students and of the tragic murder
of Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore shortly before Christmas. While they do happen to
others, he believes they still have an impact on everyone’s life.
“So many things touch us as we live in a small world. We are all
connected,” he said.
To get a handle on such issues, Father Martin makes it a point to talk about them
with the congregation, if not directly then as part of the homily.
“It’s like the elephant in the room – you have to talk about
it,” he said. “If you don’t break open the pain, you can’t
find God. You can’t go off to church and forget about everything so you feel
nice and warm here. You have to bring the suffering, the pain, the frustration, the
hope and the dream with you to prayer.”
Major changes aren’t on the way for St. Gregory’s since Father Martin
is a believer in “empowering the people rather than taking the power away from
them.”
However, he is committed to altering how St. Gregory’s is referred to. His
goal is for it to become known as the Catholic Communities of St. Gregory’s to
encompass its school, its church, involvement with businesses, ministry at the local
prison and with other community organizations.
“To call it simply St. Gregory’s parish limits the touch, the strength
and the influence we have,” he said.
What he won’t be changing is the enthusiasm and spirit he’s witnessing
from those in his congregation.
Father Martin, who lives next door to the church, jokes that while his office is
only 50 steps from his bed, he doesn’t get there often.
“I’m tired,” he chuckled, “but I do have the chance to
sleep in once in a while.”
We welcome your comments:
communications@conception.edu
www.conceptionabbey.org
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