By Susan Gallagher

The perpetual title of Deacon Dan and Carol McGrath’s weekly article in their parish’s bulletin is apt: “Come Journey With Us.” Reaching out as they journey is how the McGraths live.

At the prayer service that was part of the Diocese of Helena’s annual Son Light celebration of youth and young-adult ministry on Oct. 1, they were stewardship witnesses, each sharing a message in the Cathedral of St. Helena.

“Deacon Dan and Carol are a dynamic duo who have tirelessly worked to further the mission of the Church and hold up the place of youth and young adults in every faith community,” Bishop George Leo Thomas, who chose them to be stewardship witnesses, said this month. “They are examples of faithful living and generous service.”

Members of Holy Spirit Parish in Butte, acquainted as high school kids, married 40 years and the parents of two, the McGraths are known for lives of service. Religious education and youth work at multiple levels are part of their myriad outreach.

For Deacon Dan, a lot of the richness is in “having the opportunity to be immersed in people’s lives within our parish community. There’s a real strong feeling of extended family that the parish offers both Carol and I,” he said in a telephone interview. He noted parishioners’ “constant concern and care for us, and the opportunity for us to be there for them in their times of need.” It is baptism that empowers people to minister, said Deacon Dan, who was ordained in 1992 and is the pastoral administrator at Holy Spirit.

In a separate interview, Carol said that “blossoming in the relationship with the parish and experiencing (parishioners) as family has been one of the most beautiful things” in her life. As young parishioners at Holy Spirit, when they were practically newlyweds, she and her husband kept low profiles, she said, but as the sense of community enveloped them, “it opened for us a challenge and a desire to do more.”

For a long time, Carol said, she and her husband “were able to work together at the same pace, with the same energy.” But in living with a disability for the past 12 years or so, she finds that “you fall back and realize that what you can do is enough, because it comes from the same faith and the same desire for action.”

Carol writes the weekly article in the Holy Spirit Parish bulletin, after she and Deacon Dan have talked about the message they wish to convey. Those messages have included the importance of seeing the beauty in life—what Carol calls “looking at the flower before it fades.” Sometimes he tells her about amusing or touching developments in the parish, and those are woven into the article.

“We are forever grasping and inquiring about life situations that we cannot understand,” she wrote in the Dec. 5 bulletin. “Our greatest energy is placed on fixes rather than prevention. As we mature, we understand that true vision comes from within our hearts and most often comes while we are in the midst of darkness.”


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 12, December 17, 2010.