Weekly Letter from the Pastor

Dear Fellow Parishioners of Saint Benedict:

Another Sunday afternoon, another call from Bay Shore Community Hospital, another overdose from heroin, yet another family huddled around a gurney awaiting the results of testing. Whether or not the patient survives her life and the lives of her family, friends, boyfriend, will be changed forever. While this might – hopefully – be the rock bottom moment needed to confront the addiction for this one person, the chances now of life returning to a familiar normal seem unlikely.

The above scene is not made up – it happens – it happens now almost every weekend and sometimes more than once on a weekend. Fortunately with the advent of Naloxone many are now saved from probable death at that moment, only to go return to the same habit that brought them here in the first place. Others are not so lucky. Many still die. Others are taken alive to the hospital but are in seriously grave condition. The emergency services in Holmdel are reporting a save on an average of every other day. That’s three to four a week! I do not have any exact statistics for the other towns in our area, but there is no doubt that they are equally chilling.

We know that the state government is taking steps in addressing this addiction and, while we might argue the politics, we know that something needs to be done, now.

On Friday night we will celebrate the graduation from the eighth grade of fifty-six students from our school. As we look at them in their naïveté pondering the world of high school in front of them, and hopes and dreams forming for well into the future, it is our fervent prayer that they have the foundation and strength to resist the sordid and deadly challenges that they will face along the way.

Coming back home after my trip to the hospital Sunday I asked myself what we can and must do as a parish and as communities to stem the tide, and to reduce the number of families who find themselves in emergency rooms facing the uncertainty that lie ahead.

On New Year’s Eve day 2015 one family in our parish discovered that their 31 year old son, who had gone out with friends the night before to see a movie, did not wake that morning. I spent a couple of hours at the house that morning as the police and coroner went about their gruesome tasks. They spoke frankly about their son and his situation. They were courageous enough to name the cause of death in his obituary. Then they even went further and spoke publicly about his struggle and their loss. Like so many others they realized that they had lost their son much earlier than that tragic morning. On May 15, 2016 Marianne and Claude Thouret were featured on the front page of the Asbury Park Press as they took their battle against heroin to the press.

There is more that we have to do. We owe the Thouret’s, and the families who cannot face or publicize their pain, more than just sympathy and lip service. We are called upon to be proactive. This means honest and frank conversation with our children, grandchildren, and students. It means saying “no” when the doctor prescribes Percoset after having wisdom teeth removed, it means making sure that any old prescriptions from the medicine cabinet are disposed of properly at a pharmacy. It means making contact with our state and federal legislators to help ensure that there are proper and beneficial addiction treatment facilities and programs available for everyone. We need to decriminalize the user and offer opportunities for health and healing.

I am looking for some insight and would like to schedule a town hall meeting on this issue. I intend to reach out to the other religious leaders in our area and see how we might cooperate on this issue.

Any ideas – let me know.

Come Holy Spirit
– Fr. Garry