Hello I’m Julie Kelly and I have been a parishioner at St. Clare 23 years. When asked to tell my story I was hesitant but after reading the guidelines of what to talk about, how I see Jesus in my life and how my faith is brought into my daily life and shared with others, I said yes! These questions seemed to go right along with the book I chose to read for Lent, Positively Catholic 25 Really Good Reasons to Love the Faith, Live the Faith, and Share the Faith. The book and resurrection story guidelines both ask how I see Jesus in my life and I have to say it started 23 years ago when I moved to Gosse Pointe Park and began looking for a church to join. St. Clare was warm and inviting, which made it easy to choose to be my parish. This was the beginning of seeing Jesus in my life at St. Clare.  When it came time for my boys to attend religious ed I wasn’t sure how I would be able to pay their tuition until a good friend told me that St. Clare was looking for a 4th grade catechist and heard if you teach your children will go for free. I jumped at the idea first for financial reasons but as I taught I grew closer in my faith and learned a lot listening to my 4th graders.

Several years later, I felt it was time for me to leave religious ed. but God had another plan. A position for a jr. high coordinator came up in the religious ed. office and sounded very interesting to me so I applied and got. This position offered me many years of learning. First with the 3 women I worked with and second with the catechists and students who were on their Confirmation journey. The position also was filled with fun community outreach projects with the jr high students, their mentors and their families. In the book, Positively Catholic, the author talks about Confirmation as being a big S Sacrament but he also talks about the small s sacraments, which he explains are every time someone decides to live a better life is a sacrament of God and I believe that is what the jr. high students and I were working on.

As my boys moved on to high school, I began taking classes to become a teacher and God thought it would be a great idea for me to get some early training. The youth group needed some help and I said I would help out, well that help lasted 8 years. In those 8 years I grew even more in my faith with help from the teens. Not only from the weekly meetings but also from the retreats, and community projects; the youth group was on the ground floor of making the Sunday night mass happen. The teens volunteered to sing, usher, EM, and lector until the mass caught on and more people volunteered.

 I finally graduated from college and began my search for a teaching position. This meant I had to give up working as a jr high coordinator and youth minister. I was a little sad but happy to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a teacher. Not being involved at St. Clare felt strange but didn’t last long; the PIC committee was looking for some new recruits so I joined the group, it’s great being back and involved at St. Clare! 

The author of Positively Catholic ends each chapter with reasons why he is a Catholic; my ending to my story is “God keeps opening doors for me that is why I’m a Catholic.”