Good Mourning Ministry founders transition ministry to online platform, including those grieving loss of employment, normalcy

PLYMOUTH — How do you be there for one another, when the world is telling you to stay apart?

COVID-19 has changed everything the world has known about work, dates, family get-togethers and even funerals. But the grieving process is the same, the sense of loss is the same, and the need for hope is the same.

That’s why John and Sandy O’Shaughnessy, parishioners at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth and founders of Good Mourning Ministry, have developed online resources based on their Grieving With Great Hope workshops to help families struggling with loss during the pandemic.

“We developed Mourning Matters, grieving at home materials during the coronavirus pandemic with several ideas for what you can do at home,” Sandy told Detroit Catholic. “We have a whole section on prayer, creating a prayer space with pictures and memorabilia of loved ones. Praying with Scripture related to grief and asking for the intercession of the confirmation saints of those who were lost.”

Though funerals are beginning to resume as Michigan moves closer to a full reopening, gatherings in many places are still limited to small numbers.

The O’Shaughnessys also suggest journaling, one-on-one phone calls and listening to music as other ways to grieve from a distance, sharing a common experience with others.

The couple began their grief ministry after each of them lost their first spouses. After attending a Grieving with Great Hope conference organized by then-Our Lady of Good Counsel pastor Fr. John Riccardo, John discerned establishing a Catholic bereavement ministry after adoring the Eucharist.

“At the time, I was with a Christian-based grief support organization and wasn’t really thinking about why Catholics would need anything different,” John O’Shaughnessy said. “About a month later, in January 2011, I saw Fr. John and told him what I heard at adoration, that God wants us to do something for grieving Catholics.”

What they developed incorporated Eucharistic adoration, intercession of the saints, writings from St. Augustine, St. John Paul II and St. Maximilian Kolbe and practical tips on living with grief and what it means to grieve.

“We’ve been thinking outside the box in terms of how to continue the ministry,” Sandy said. “We are finding more and more that beyond ministry to those who have lost a loved one, there are people who just want someone to talk to about a loss of security, a loss of job, the loss of human touch.”

The couple has completed almost 60 workshops across the Archdiocese of Detroit and other dioceses in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, consisting of either five-week sessions at a parish or condensed weekend retreats.

The O’Shaughnessys later partnered with Formed.org to put their material online so more Catholics across the country can access the programming.

Sandy lost her first husband in 2000 to caner and her mother to a car accident in the same year, while John lost his first wife to cancer in 1998. Their experience with other bereavement ministries shaped what they wanted Grieving with Great Hope to address.

Today, John works full-time for the ministry, while Sandy is director of religious education at Our Lady of Good Counsel while pursuing a master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Madonna University. John is pursuing his grief counseling certificate.

The two are working on a program involving Zoom meetings for people to virtually gather and discuss their loss, even if that loss is a loss of employment, financial security or the normal routine that now seems like a distant memory for many people.

“We’ve been thinking outside the box in terms of how to continue the ministry,” Sandy said. “We are finding more and more that beyond ministry to those who have lost a loved one, there are people who just want someone to talk to about a loss of security, a loss of job, the loss of human touch.

“When we launched these videos, we found people from across the country are resonating with the message,” Sandy added.

The videos and resources are meant to be consumed in a group setting, but John and Sandy said the material works just as well on an individual level.

The O’Shaughnessys add that grief doesn’t happen in neat and tidy stages, but rather is more of a roller-coaster process of ups and downs. Emotions and sentiment comes and goes while grieving, and the grieving can’t begin until there is an acceptance of loss, John said.

In the context of COVID-19 and its subsequent restrictions, that means accepting that times aren’t normal, that the routine is broken.

“The third stage of grieving is acceptance, and that is something we need to do,” John said. “We need to accept that this is not business as usual; we don’t have access to a usual funeral liturgy, the typical large family gathering. We had a Zoom session last week, and I asked, ‘Who in the last week has felt angry?’ A lot of people who feel angry need to first accept they feel that emotion. When we deny we are angry, we are suppressing it, not allowing ourselves to get on. 

“Emotions are high right now, so we need to accept that fact that life is not usual right now.”

Check out John and Sandy O’Shaughnessy’s Good Mourning Ministry at www.goodmourningministry.net.