Prayer Shawls

 
The participants of St. Patrick’s Prayer Shawl Ministry have found a new way to connect with God – through their knitting and crocheting. They combine their love of knitting and crocheting into a prayerful ministry that reaches out to those in need of comfort. Prayer becomes meditation and an awareness of God’s presence in our lives. The actual knitting and crocheting of the shawl becomes a prayerful practice. Many blessings are knitted into every shawl which is a tangible symbol of an inclusive unconditionally loving God who enfolds the recipient of the shawl. Our product is a shawl but our purpose is prayer.

Shawls or lap-ghans can be requested by a parishioner for someone they know who is in need of prayer, comfort and a hug from God. Shawls have been gifted for many various reasons, not only sickness, and shawls are gifted to men, woman & children.

The 1 ^st session of this ministry was held in September 2007. The 1 ^st Blessing of Shawls at a Mass was held in February 2008. Over 1,100 shawls have been gifted, 200 of these shawls were gifted through the hospital Bereavement Committee to terminally ill patients at UMass Hospital beginning in June 2010. Since January 2010, over 140 Baptismal blankets have been gifted & used as the white garment for the Sacrament of Baptism here at St. Patrick’s and 35 Baptismal blankets have also been gifted to UMass Hospital. Since 2010, RCIA candidates receive a white shawl at their Baptism at the Easter Vigil.

Each candidate for Confirmation receives a red prayer cloth and each child in the First Eucharist class receives a small white prayer cloth. The woman, who made the prayer cloth, prays for that candidate while the prayer cloth is being made & until the candidate receives their Sacrament. Prayer cloths are also made for the participants of YNIA, Spin Action and the college group who went to Columbia.
We have been truly blessed!
 
Please join us if you knit or crochet or if you would like to learn. We meet in the Parish Center once a month on Saturday mornings, from September – May from 9:30 am – 11:30 am. In June – August, we meet Wednesday evenings from 6:30pm  – 8:30 pm