Dear Friends,
Next weekend, St. Frances Cabrini Parish is having a Lenten Parish Mission!! Years ago, this type of event would have brought in Redemptorist, Dominican, or Jesuit preachers to speak each night at the parish for a week with the goal of challenging people to grow closer to God and the church. It resembled a Catholic tent revival.
For the last thirty years or so, Catholic Churches have used the Parish Mission as a way of reigniting people in their faith life by bringing in guest speakers to offer parishioners new and different perspectives in the faith journey. We are blessed to have ValLimar Jansen with us this year.
ValLimar Jansen could have pursued movie and television opportunities, but she felt pulled in a different direction. Instead of the fame and fortune of the big screen, ValLimar felt drawn to using her talents to spread the message of God.
Born in Louisiana and raised in the Baptist church, ValLimar Jansen began singing in church at age four. By the time she was five she sang her first professional performance. The granddaughter of a Baptist pastor, she grew up with the Word of God as the center of her existence, but while she embraced the faith of her family, her heart began turning toward the Blessed Mother.
“I had family that was Catholic and I kept wondering why they got to have Mary and we didn’t. I wondered why they got to do other things and we didn’t,” she said. “And at the same time, I began having dreams of Mary and meeting her and Jesus in a garden. I remember telling my mother that I had another dream about Mary and she said, ‘Stop dreaming about Mary, we are Baptist.’”
When ValLimar was around six, she convinced her mother to let her stay up to watch Christmas Midnight Mass. Enamored with the beauty of the Mass, she talked to her mother about it.
“She told me that this was the way our cousins did it, but we don’t do it that way,” she said, laughing. “When I became an adult, I went to Mass in the Newman Center while in grad school in California, and I knew I was home. I finally felt home. I bring my rich training and love of Scriptures and dedication to live a life of holiness to the Catholic faith.”
After converting to Catholicism at the Easter Vigil in 1991, she attended a religious education conference in Los Angeles, advertised to be the largest gathering of Catholics in the United States. While there, she was asked to cantor with the jazz band. “I was blown away by the experience, went to the woman running it and told her that I loved her vision, supported it and wanted to come the following year to help. I told her I would sweep floors and move chairs,” she said. “The woman just told me to come back the next year. I went back year after year and was asked to cantor for different things. Later, she found out that I was a professor at Loyola Marymount and she asked me to do a workshop.”
ValLimar travels about 45 weeks of the year, performing at venues around the world, giving workshops, concerts and conferences. When she is not on the road, she and her husband Frank enjoy their home in southern California, surrounded by their three adult children and extended family.
In her performances, ValLimar combines storytelling, speaking, music and prayer to reach her audience. She believes, “we all have this commission and we have been commissioned to be the living, broken body of Christ to the world. Even in our brokenness, we are all ministers of God’s love for the entire Body of Christ.”
Citing a recent study from St. Catherine of Siena Institute, which found that only about 18 to 19 percent of people are practicing their faith, ValLimar said, “I hope my ministry may help them think about their faith in a different way, and that it reignites their passion for the faith.
Please join us for the Lenten Mission. Come to all three nights, but if you can only make one night, come for that one! The sessions will last just over an hour. We will have punch and cookies each night at a brief reception following the talk.
Peace,
Fr. Damian