Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Ministry helps women 'gussy up' their spirits
Ministry helps women 'gussy up' their spirits
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published August 8, 2008
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Photo courtesy of Gussy Up Your Spirit
Pam Michels (left) and Julia Strieter share a laugh at a Gussy Up Your Spirit event. The ministry has reached hundreds of women. |
Detroit — Moms who forget about themselves as they care for everyone else.
Professional women who balance demanding jobs with demanding family lives.
Young women trying to find Christian fellowship.
Older women who are retired, who volunteer in the community.
What do they all have in common?
Many are finding that the answer is a dynamic relationship with the Lord — and they're finding it through a women's renewal ministry called Gussy Up Your Spirit. What started not two years ago as a one-day event for women at St. Mary Parish in Wayne has blossomed into a full-fledged ministry that has now touched several hundred women across the Archdiocese of Detroit.
In the face of busy lives, the ministry seeks to remind women of their own sacredness and of the awesome love the Lord has for each one of them.
"We know the stresses in our world today," says Stacie Marentette, who helps run the ministry. "Gussy Up Your Spirit helps renew them. Once they walk out that door, they really can step out into the world and tap into the gifts God has given them, and use them in their everyday lives."
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Photo courtesy of Gussy Up Your Spirit
Women take part in a musical exercise during a Gussy Up Your Spirit day of renewal. Gussy Up Your Spirit started as a one-time event at St. Mary Parish in Wayne and blossomed into a full-time ministry that has touched hundreds of women in the Archdiocese of Detroit. |
Gussy Up Your Spirit was started two years ago by Sr. Pat Hergenroether, CSJ, who had been pastoral minister at St. Mary Parish. Since, Sr. Hergenroether has run the women's renewal ministry full-time, and is aided by 10 other women who volunteer their time — the "Gussy Team."
Typically, they're invited into a parish community to conduct the renewal for parishioners. Those events could last anywhere from a couple of hours up to a day. Most of the time the events are open to all women, regardless of with parish they belong to.
More lively than a solemn retreat, a renewal event typically will entail reflections, prayer, song, conversations with others, presentations and even artistic expressions. Daylong events include the sharing of a meal, too.
As the ministry's moniker might imply, there's a lightheartedness to Gussy Up Your Spirit. But at its core, organizers say, it's about connectedness with the Lord and with other Christian women at all levels of seriousness, from the whimsical to the serious.
Attendees can speak to the value of the atmosphere.
"Yes, there's laughter and song, but it is solemn and reflective," says Kris Hester, a mother of three who after attending a Gussy Up Your Spirit event at St. William in Walled Lake encouraged her own parish, St. Joseph in South Lyon, to host a renewal. "You can laugh, and you had tears."
Hester says the two Gussy Up Your Spirit events she attended helped refresh her relationship with God.
"Both times I was able to open up and I started reading daily devotionals more, even just a few minutes of prayer and quiet that I don't always have in my life," she says.
Soon, parish nurses across the archdiocese also will know what it's like to "gussy up" their spirits. The Gussy Up Your Spirit team has been invited to conduct a portion of this year's annual Parish Nurse Retreat in October.
"Sr. Pat Hergenroether and her team bring a creative, innovative approach to spiritual well-being," says Jane Cheyne, who sits on the archdiocese's parish nurse advisory board. "They use senses, sights and sounds. They include spirituality through the use of music.
"And they're creative in helping people to discern what's heavy on their hearts. They're very insightful in bringing that out, then laying it on the table to talk about it and to unload some of those things that stand in the way of your relationship with God."
Cheyne, a parishioner of St. Augustine Parish in Richmond, first encountered Gussy Up Your Spirit while serving as a parish nurse at St. Basil Parish in Eastpointe. During a program on heart health, Cheyne focused on the physical aspects of heart health and had Gussy Up Your Spirit focus on the spiritual aspect of being in tune with God's heartbeat.
"The validity of parish nursing is that you bring about holistic health care," Cheyne says. "It was cool because we brought in nursing and the medical side, and then we brought in the spiritual side and brought it all together."
She hopes the parish nurses will find as much value in the Gussy Up Your Spirit message as she has.
"I hope they go away with that drive to be in sync with God's will and be really in tune with the heartbeat of God," she says. "This is not a traditional retreat."
The Gussy Team credit the unconventional nature of its ministry with its success. At the same time, the ministry offers an escape from the everyday grind and the chance to connect with other women who face the same kinds of challenges each day.
"I believe that in society today there's a lot more stress and pressures for women," says Pam Michels, a mother of two who works at St. Thomas a'Becket Parish in Canton. "Gussy Up Your Spirit can provide an atmosphere that's fun and worry-free. Each person will experience something at the event that will make herself a better woman."
Originally, Michels signed up for the very first Gussy Up Your Spirit event with a friend to support a parish function. Now a member of the Gussy Team, she says she's excited about the ministry's growth.
Already, 15 Gussy Up Your Spirit events have taken place in several parishes. So far, 11 more are scheduled in parishes through next spring — a number that is likely to grow.
"I can only pray that it continues to take off like it has," Michels says. "If we can try to make a difference in the world and touch one woman's heart at a time — it can only make the world a better place."
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