By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
Senior adults are a huge and growing portion of the Church in the United States. They are often the Mass greeters, the lectors, the altar society members in their parishes — a sort of backbone in the Body of Christ; but many senior groups and ministries in the local Church have diminished or disappeared over the years, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Church must find a way to rebuild these ministries and invite seniors into continued discipleship, Kevin Prevou, Diocese of Dallas associate director of human dignity and respect for life, said.
Over the past year, Prevou has met with parish senior group leaders from across the Diocese of Dallas to plan and dream about the future of senior ministries in the diocese. In March, representatives from several of these parishes gathered for the Parish Senior Adult Group Leaders Meet-Up at Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Plano to consider the question: How do we invite seniors into discipleship?
“There’s a lot of life and energy left with seniors,” Prevou explained. “We want to continue to develop our interior life, especially as our bodies fall apart. We need to develop that inner life that brings us closer to Jesus.”
Among the seven parishes represented at the March meeting were St. Anthony Catholic Church in Wylie and St. Luke Catholic Church in Irving. Both are hard at work to provide senior Catholics in the local Church with engaging opportunities to deepen their spiritual, educational, and social lives.
SASSY
For many seniors, sadness is a fact of life, St. Anthony Catholic Church parishioner Karla Warborg said; but fun and fellowship should be just as present for these aging adults. St. Anthony Seniors Staying Young (SASSY), the seniors group at the Wylie parish, aims to offer that lighthearted camaraderie by being a community where birthdays are remembered, jokes are shared, and friendships are formed, Warborg said.
Each month, the group gathers over coffee and pastries in the Father Pondant Hall. One member reports on the happenings at a senior center; another shares the goings-on at the parish council; and another, the sunshine chairman, acknowledges the birthdays that month.
“When you get to be our age, celebrating a birthday is pretty important,” Warborg said. “You’ve made it one more year.”
As the general program chairman of the group, Warborg aims to educate her fellow seniors on topics of spiritual, mental, and physical importance, including through rundowns on chair yoga exercises, email scams, and unique national holidays. May, for example, is National Cheese Month.
“I have always felt that you should learn something new every day,” the senior said. “It doesn’t matter how old you are.”
Much like its name, SASSY endeavors to offer its seniors amusement and humor. Warborg recalled a couple of favorite moments of merriment, including a modified version of pickleball the group played — utilizing balloons and paper towel rolls as balls and paddles — and a seniors-friendly Olympics competition.
“Our meeting fell during Special Olympics,” she recalled. “We had a mini Olympics program, and there were different stations around the great hall that they went through geared more to the capabilities of what we can do.”
Hijinks like these are more than just entertaining, Warborg shared; they are a way of bringing together seniors — many of whom have experienced loss, pain, and loneliness — in a way that acknowledges their needs, their strengths, and their capacity to grow and learn.
“The seniors in general, in all of the parishes, need to be acknowledged,” Warborg said.
Silver Seniors
Like the SASSY group of St. Anthony, the Silver Seniors group of St. Luke goes well beyond Bingo in what it offers the senior population in the local Church.
For more than 25 years, the Silver Seniors group has served older adults in its geographic area, including the parishioners of other churches, like Holy Family of Nazareth Catholic Church, the Church of the Incarnation, and Mater Dei Parish. The group gathers on the St. Luke campus for luncheons, speaking events, and a monthly rosary, but also ventures beyond the parish borders for bus excursions to unique destinations.
“We take very extraordinary trips that for people our age may economically or physically not be possible; but we take bus trips that can stop as often as needed,” longtime Silver Senior Jo-Ann Bresowar said. The St. Luke parishioner shared that because limited agility and loneliness are, in her view, the two greatest difficulties facing many seniors, the chance to go on adventures together via bus is a great service to this population. Some older adults are unable to drive or take trips by themselves. A bus ride together, overseen by a hired driver, can bring them to places they could not otherwise visit. “We’ve been to the Shrine of (Blessed) Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City. We’ve done all the painted churches in south Texas. We’ve gone to the missions in Santa Fe, New Mexico… We went to EWTN… Many things that we would not do otherwise or could not.”
In the buses, the seniors keep busy with conversations, games, and recitations of the rosary. This time together, as well as the time seniors share during events hosted on the St. Luke campus, helps members of the Silver Seniors to walk with each other through life — both its joys and challenges.
“The ministry brings together people” who share a “camaraderie of feelings — sometimes fear, sometimes illness,” Bresowar explained. “You’re in the same mode, so you can help each other and talk to each other and pray with each other.”
“We pray it just continues,” she added, “because it’s so, so needed.”
Cutline for featured image: Members of Silver Seniors, the seniors group of St. Luke Catholic Church in Irving, pose for a photo during one of the group’s bus trips. St. Luke is one of the several parish senior groups in the Diocese of Dallas created to promote faith and fellowship among older parishioners. (Courtesy photo)
