Day of recollection provides reset for Covenant Health

Mission And Spiritual Care Leaders

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

Colin McNabb wanted to offer a reset for the mission and spiritual care professionals within the Covenant Health system, so he brought them together for a day this spring to reflect and connect.

“I think the best way to think of it is the nurse and our clinical teams are responsible for (patients’) bodies,” he said. “We’re responsible for their souls. And the care of souls, I think, is a great responsibility.”

The First Annual Spiritual Care Day of Recollection went off so well that McNabb hopes to make it a yearly event.

McNabb is director of mission and pastoral care at St. Mary Health Care Center, a rehabilitation and eldercare facility in Worcester, Massachusetts, that is part of Covenant Health. He intentionally planned the gathering for just after the busy Easter season. Fourteen of his peers from all levels of the health system joined him at the May 23 event. Covenant Health includes 15 hospitals, skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers and assisted living residences in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Retreat with a view

The day was meant to be a time for the group to get together physically. They normally see one another once a year at a fall retreat, and in regular virtual meetings.

McNabb wanted to plan a gathering that would be less of a burden for all than an overnight retreat. He’s close with Msgr. James Moroney, director of the Office of Divine Worship in the Diocese of Worchester. Msgr. Moroney offered to speak and lead conversations for the day.

McNabb arranged through his counterpart Sandra Lucas at St. André Health Care to use the meeting space at the nursing home in Biddeford, Maine. St. André’s grounds overlook the Saco River. The loca-