Bill Blaul
Special to The Michigan Catholic

Royal Oak— More than a year after the pastor and parishioners at St. Mary Parish in Royal Oak launched their Changing Lives Together campaign, they continue to seek and receive pledges to achieve their priorities, with one already accomplished — eliminating the parish debt.



St. Mary parishioners, with an archdiocesan target of $544,000, have pledged more than $710,000 toward a $910,000 goal for the 1,400-household parish, which continues to grow under the leadership of Fr. Steven Wertanen, its pastor. Parish priorities included eliminating the parish debt, which was accomplished last year. Improving the church heating, air-conditioning and sound systems, more visible parish signage, and technology improvements at St. Mary Catholic School are next on the list.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE INTENTIONS AND FRIENDS OF ST. MARY IN ROYAL OAK Changing Lives Together leaders at St. Mary created a prayer card to help revive parish prayer efforts: Our Parish Brothers and Sisters  Individual intentions of parishioners and friends collected and placed in the prayer box  The sick of the parish  The deceased of the parish  Parishioners unemployed and underemployed  An increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life  Return of strayed sheep to the fold  Our various parish ministries  To be welcoming to our neighbors  That our plan to update our parish census data will be successful and that we will use that information to tailor our ministries and our evangelization  Wisdom and strength for our parish leaders and staff Our Community Brothers and Sisters  Those we serve in the community  The health and wellbeing of our neighbors Our Country and Worldwide Brothers and Sisters  Religious liberty  Respect for life from conception to natural death  Religious unity  Wisdom for political leaders

“This is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” said Tom Larabell, campaign co-chairman at St. Mary. “We have no debt, so now we can focus on putting our funds into real improvements.”

Larabell said the parish is getting estimates on replacing the heating and air-conditioning systems for both the church and rectory.

“We’ve never had air-conditioning in the church building; it’s something we’ve talked about for a long time, and I think we’re just a matter of months from getting there,” said Larabell, a 32-year parishioner and former business manager at St. Mary.

Larabell said the parish will continue parishioner-to-parishioner phone calls twice annually during Lent and Advent to seek prayer intentions and welcome call recipients to parish events, especially Sunday Mass. Also planned is a revival of the parish prayer team that had about 60 members during the campaign.

“We want to make it a permanent parish ministry,” Larabell said. “We’re asking folks to pray at home, and once monthly on the third Sunday starting in June, we’ll hold a prayer service at the church. We made a prayer card with things to pray for in the parish family, in our community, and on a national and worldwide basis like religious liberty and the right to life.”

The parish has witnessed other benefits from its participation in Changing Lives Together.

“We received an unexpected and greatly appreciated pledge of $80,000 from one parishioner, and we’ve been able to clean up our parish registry records through the phone calls and other outreach.”