Lisa Longacre said she was just “a regular parishioner” before the beginning of Lent in 2012 when Father Dan Leary, then pastor of St. Andrew Apostle Parish in Silver Spring, invited her to become more involved in the parish. Up until that point she had been very involved in the parish school, both as an alumna writing a quarterly newsletter and as a school parent to her four young sons. Accepting Father Leary’s invitation, she began helping him with his Healing Ministry, and that simple “yes” led to many other opportunities, including the Women’s Ministry which was created out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longacre also serves the parish as a sacristan and coordinates the schedule for the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
“It is not a group. It is a ministry,” Longacre, an NIH scientist, clarified. “We don’t do just one thing. We are not just one set of women.” The goal of the Women’s Ministry, she said, is to have “lots of diverse offerings – not just social events – throughout the entire year designed so that everyone can find something that fits with where they are on their spiritual journey.”
The ministry grew in an organic fashion beginning with small groups in Longacre’s home during the pandemic, to outside pilgrimages to local sacred sites, and then as the lockdown eased and larger numbers of participants were approved, to gatherings in the church.
All of the Women’s Ministry programs, along with audio versions of talks given, are archived on the parish website while an extensive system of networking via Flocknotes ensures widespread notice of upcoming events. One program, Sisters in Christ, is a regularly scheduled meeting on the first Saturday of each month where attendees pray the rosary, attend Mass, and then meet with the pastor to review the Gospel readings for the coming weeks. This program following Mass lasts about 45 minutes and regularly has 20 to 25 women in attendance.
Because of the diversity of the offerings, other programs will also draw anywhere from 20 to 30 participants, with much larger numbers for special events such as the May Communion Breakfast and the Advent by Candlelight Dinner which fills the all-purpose space to its capacity of 140. Women’s retreats often have more than 200 women in attendance.
The Eucharistic Holy Hour for the Fallen Away at St. Andrew Apostle Parish began in 2022, and has since been held each year on Aug. 17, the Feast of St. Monica. Longacre said priests told her that one of the most common concerns that people express to them is concern over relatives and friends who have left the faith. She wanted to celebrate St. Monica’s Feast Day in a “focused way to let others know they are not alone and to bring their focus to the Eucharist and remind them of the example of St. Monica.”
St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine, and she prayed fervently for her son’s return to the faith. On the Aug. 28 Feast of St. Augustine in 2025, Pope Leo XIV said that St. Augustine was “one of the great founders of monasticism, a bishop, theologian, preacher, writer, and doctor of the Church…but this did not happen overnight…through God’s grace, through the prayers of his mother, Monica…Augustine was able to find the way to peace for his restless heart.”
This year’s Eucharistic Holy Hour for the Fallen Away began with the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament by Father John Winslow, a parochial vicar at St. Andrew’s. During Adoration, attendees were invited to place a card with prayer intentions in a basket at the foot of the altar. The cards would later be placed at the foot of the altar of the rectory chapel for the parish priests to continue to pray for those intentions in the coming days.
The diverse attendees for the rosary and Holy Hour numbered nearly 100 people, men and women of all ages. During times of silent reflection between the different parts of the program, the church was reverent and quiet while those attending prayed.
Following the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Dorrie Argentine, another St. Andrew’s parishioner who is instrumental in the organization of the Women’s Ministry, led the attendees in a litany to saints who were parents. Argentine joined the parish in 2016 and became involved in the Women’s Ministry after reaching out to Longacre about a talk she had given about her walk down the Camino de Santiago in Spain. They have been friends ever since, and work together to plan the Women’s Ministry events. Argentine’s own devotion to St. Monica was heightened by a visit to St. Monica’s tomb in Rome about 10 years ago, where she contemplated all that St. Monica had been through in her lifetime.
Recitation of the rosary followed, organized by parishioner Jayne Misra. The rosary included special meditations drawn from each of the mysteries of the rosary focusing on Mary’s role as mother to Jesus and to the Church.
Lisa Longacre began the Holy Hour program with an opening prayer. There were three readings of Scripture, each followed by a hymn and a short meditation. Cantors for the hymns were Luisa Sleeman and Mary Leibolt, who led the hymns a cappella from their pew, which along with the candlelight and dimmed church lights lent a haunting beauty to the service. Lisa Longacre concluded the program with a prayer to St. Monica, followed by Benediction and the repose of the Blessed Sacrament by Father Winslow.
Alice Pollock, a St. Andrew’s parishioner for 29 years, led the third section of the program with a reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Pollock has been actively participating in the Women’s Ministry for about six years, and prior to that, attended events but then felt called to take a more active participation in the ministry. Explaining the importance of the Women’s Ministry, Pollock said, “In today's world, it is so important to share our journey with other women of faith. In so many parts of our lives, we might be uncomfortable sharing our faith with our neighbors or coworkers. To be able to walk with other women who are believers is a real blessing.”
St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church is located on Kemp Mill Road in Silver Spring. The parish and its Spanish ministry, Misión San Andrés, includes about 1,900 registered households, totaling about 6,000 parishioners. More information about the Women’s Ministry can be found on the parish website, https://standrewapostle.org .
(Michelle Ardillo is a freelance writer and parishioner at the Shrine of St. Jude Catholic Church in Rockville, Maryland. She is a retired Catholic school English teacher in the Archdiocese of Washington who is currently writing a book on the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. See more of her work at www.michelleardillo.com.)
