Epiphany – January 14, 2025

Sharon Pignanelli talks about the books reviews she writes to encourage parishioners to use the St. Mary of Chelsea’s library.

I began life in Detroit in 1939 living in a multi-generational household of parents, widowed grandmother and great-grandparents. Two weeks after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Elementary Education I married my husband, Frank, a retail pharmacist. That relationship lasted for 62 years until he died from a combination of physical medical problems and dementia in December of 2023. After serving 2 years in the Army, we returned to Ann Arbor and raised our daughter, Lisa and our son John there as members of St. Francis parish. In 1965, I converted to Catholicism. There was no RCIA or OCIA to catechize adults so thus began my own individual pursuit of more information about my faith. Once our children became adults and struck out on their own, we moved to the Chelsea area, first settling north of the city in an area known as North Lake. No longer needing our large home in the country, in 2010 we moved into downtown Chelsea where I still reside.h We became parishioners of St. Mary, Chelsea in 1993 and as I had done at St. Francis, I immediately became involved in several ministries. Those included co-developing a parish cookbook celebrating the 150th anniversary of St. Mary, participating in a Welcome Back program for those who had been away from the faith, serving on Parish Council, serving on the Altar Society Board and coordinating the Parish Archives. During the past ten years I joined our weekly Women’s Bible Study group and began coordinating the donation of several hundred books from Gerald and Rose Bradley. Gerry, a retired librarian, asked that the collection be named St. Mary Adult Lending Library or S.M.A.L.L. It resides in a room just off our Gathering Space near the church’s main entrance. Families have so many other things demanding their attention these days I struggled to come up with ways to encourage them to make better use of these resources. How could I make it easier for them to find something appropriate to read? The idea of writing a book review highlighting one particular book each month kept reocurring. It could be placed in a prominent place where it could be easily found without searching through the stacks. So with encouragement from church staff, I began that process in early fall of 2024. I have tried to select volumes relevant to liturgical seasons or church events. Only time will tell if this will increase library usage. As a footnote, I would like to add that my daughter Lisa Ivey and her husband Clark who are members of St. Mary in Wililamston have presented our family with three grandchildren. Their eldest is Deacon Brett Ivey, who began his serious discernment for the priesthood under the mentorship of Very Rev. Mark Rutherford, JCD (Cand.), judicial vicar of the Archdiocese of Military Services, USA. Deacon Brett is scheduled to be ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Lansing in June. We are so proud of him and ask everyone for prayers for his vocation and those of the six others who will be ordained with him.

Visit St. Mary in Chelsea here: St . Mary Chelsea