Dear Parish Family,

Which of you, if given the opportunity, wouldn’t spend a little extra time and money on “Preventive Maintenance” on your cars if they would last another 10 yr. or 100,000 miles?  Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Well, you have that opportunity with your bodies, those “Temples of the Holy Spirit” given to us by God.

If you change your oil regularly: eat good, high fiber foods, drink lots of water, watch the “wicked whites” – flours, breads, pastas, sugars, etc., check your antifreeze and flush your radiator ; go for regular check ups, women have yearly mammograms, men and women over 50 have colonoscopies as directed by your doctor, Don’t drive it too hard and keep it in the garage if at all possible ; keep your weight in a healthy range so your heart, kidneys and joints aren’t unnecessarily stressed; get regular exercise but start slowly and be consistent; get adequate rest, especially if you’re not feeling well or are emotionally stressed and of course keep it insured -  I can’t think of any better insurance than regular prayer time and regular church attendance, can you?

We as adults have the responsibility of teaching our children about Preventive maintenance as well. After all, if you buy a used car and it hasn’t been well-cared for, it’s much more costly (and may be impossible) to get the car in good working order and have an extended life on that car. If your children learn and live poor eating habits, don’t exercise or learn about and live their faith they may face a losing battle when they become adults if they are overweight and have poor health. Even before your children learn to drive they are watching you as you drive and they see how you do (or don’t) take care of your vehicles. Of course when they learn to drive you also teach them some of these things but if you’ve modeled poor driving habits and car maintenance they’re not very likely to drive safely and care for their vehicles.

Next time you take your car in for (or do) an oil change, take a quick inventory of how you’ve been eating lately and if you’ve been exercising (by more than using the remote to change channels!) and how active your prayer and worship life has been lately. You might be pleasantly surprised or you may see some room for improvement. Either way, say a prayer of thanks for all you have, both materially and spiritually. We live in the most blessed nation in the world, which is a good news/bad news situation. Let’s all work at making it a good news situation by using all our gifts to live a better life and share the gifts we have so that others may also have a better life.

For those of you who may need a little help with their PREVENTIVE maintenance program there are many exercise opportunities, especially now that the weather is getting nicer and there are many sensible weight loss and weight maintenance programs. Remember that it’s not as hard to lose the weight usually as it is to keep it off. That’s where learning about nutrition and eating sensibly make the difference. If you have any questions about nutrition or exercise please feel free to call me and I’ll share what information I have or direct you to reliable resources.

God’s richest blessings and my love and prayers,

Maureen Redmer, RN

Parish Nurse, Aurora Parish Nurse Program