Today, March 19 on the Church Calendar is the Feast of Saint Joseph who was the foster/ adoptive father of Jesus and husband of Mary.  St. Joseph is also the name I chose as my “Saint Name” on the day I made my confirmation receiving a “slap” on my cheek by the Bishop of Philadelphia signifying my receiving the Holy Spirit. I was about 13 years old at the time remembering how impressed I was and why I chose Joseph as my “Saint Name.”  Joseph willingly took Mary as his wife who was expecting a son that he was told would not be his.  I admired Joseph because he was entrusted by God to take Mary as his wife and raise Jesus as his own son; thus God blessed and honored him.  Joseph is the express image of what a foster/ adoptive father should be, loving and caring for the children entrusted to them.  If you have watched the episode on “The Chosen,” season three in which Mary reflects on the “father and son” interaction of Joseph and Jesus, you get a real human experi...

Forgiving - Forgiveness I have read quite a few excerpts from books and articles including Jesus’s words on forgiveness.  Yes, we are to forgive one another for the offenses against us and for the offenses against others….not just because Jesus says or commands us to.  If we do so because Jesus said to then are we being truly honest in our forgiveness. Forgiving should not be just a command but should come from the heart in compassion for one another; that is true forgiveness.  And yes, we won’t forget what was done but we should never bring it up again; reopening the wounds of pain; not true forgiveness either. Who do you need to forgive?

PREGNANCY PREVENTION I graduated from Bible College in 1990 earning a dual bachelor’s degree one in Science of the Bible and the other in the science of Social Work.   I already had a job waiting for me at graduation; an offer I accepted as an intern in Social Work.   The position was a counselor for an agency working with homeless, runaway youth that provided emergency shelter with a goal of reuniting the youth with their families.   One of the tasks to this position was facilitating workshops to high school students.   I was invited to facilitate a weekly workshop to a class of ninth graders; Relations in Society. The goal of this class was to educate the students and make them aware of community based agencies that provided services to youth.   The agency I worked for offered a series of workshops on healthy relationships.   One of the topics was on pregnancy prevention providing an overview of the human anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases and contr...

  I WANT THE CONTROL On Sunday, the indirect message I was hearing was, God is in Control. “God is gonna put you where he wants you,” said Pastor Steve Weygand as we read from Psalm 66. To emphasize God’s faithfulness, Pastor Steve shared a story about his parents traveling across country with the family to a “new job” that was waiting for his father which, when they arrived at their destination did not exist. With no job and no home to move into what was the family going to do? God was in control and the need was to trust God. God took them exactly where he wanted them to be. “All things work together for good, to them that love God,” wrote the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:28.   God saw and met the family’s need, and all was fine – faith and trust. Pastor Steve went on to share his own story, traveling across country to further his education only to discover that none of his credits were transferable. What was he going to do? Remembering the situation his parents were in Pastor...

  Mariology By profession, I am a Social Worker.   Social Workers are mostly aware that when working with clients we begin advocating and providing services to meet their basic needs right from the point of where clients are in their lives.   Once Social Workers meet the basic needs, and if there is a need for mental health counseling/therapy, this would likely be the only time Social Workers might work with clients to get to the root causes of their situations.   Social Workers pride themselves on using the holistic approach with clients and assisting them with support systems that are available to them; these include family, friends, colleagues, and pastor/religious leaders of the faith to which clients might belong.   At my first full-time Social Work internship, while in college I had a supervisor who 1) respected the fact that I was earning my Social Work degree along with a Bible degree: 2) encouraged me to look into all religions so I would be familiar ...

CAIRN UNIVERSITY Please take the time to carefully read this blog; it’s important to me and my colleagues.   May 26, 2021 for past and present social workers of Cairn University was the start of an emotional, questionable, and confusion journey in the history of Cairn; the closing of the School of Social Work, which began its Master of Social Work program this year.   Imagine the shock, the pain and hurt we all felt by this news, receiving a letter written by the President of Cairn without warning, an exploding bomb and a knife to our hearts.   Here is a copy of the letter written by the President.               Dear Social Work Alumni, I am writing to update you on some very important developments at the University. There will be additional communication from the University with more specifics, but I did not want to wait any longer than necessary to get this news to you. After much prayer and deliberation, the University w...