Mel and Pat McAnany are this year’s co-chairs for the Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal. The members of the McAnany family are (from left): Ryan, Katie, Pat, Mel and Ben.
Pat and Mel McAnany, husband and wife, have graciously agreed to serve as co-chairs of the 2018 Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal. “We always wanted to find ways to contribute to our church,” said Mel. “Sometimes it was money, other times it was our time. Now, more than ever, we want to offer our prayers.”
Pat and Mel, along with their family, have been a part of St. Joseph Parish in Shawnee for five generations. Pat’s father was on the building committee for the church in 1959. Almost 60 years later, Pat served on the building renovation committee. He has also given his time to the parish’s school council and finance council, and has helped coordinate construction of an adoration chapel in 1988 and a new school in 2003.
Through all of the material improvements, Pat believes the prayerful spiritual life is most important.
“We have always believed that a solid foundation in our faith is essential to the future,” he said.
“When God blessed us with children, I became a work-at-home mom,” Mel said. “Nothing was more important to us than providing for our children and giving back to the church.”
Pat and Mel are involved in many spiritual and corporal works of mercy throughout the archdiocese. The Spiritual Mentorship program that Pat and Mel completed with the Apostles of the Interior Life focuses on prayer and a relationship with Jesus. Through spirituality, they believe, our culture can be transformed.
Other programs are important to them as well, such as the School of Faith, which helps teachers and religious educators better understand the power and beauty of what we Catholics believe.
“Archbishop Naumann is leading a vision that is changing the lives of Catholics, one person at a time,” said Mel.
“When Archbishop Naumann invited us to be the co-chairs of the Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal, we wondered, ‘Why us?’” said Pat. “We don’t do anything different from what so many other Catholic families in the archdiocese have done. Family and faith are at the center of our lives.”
Jesus called ordinary, unlikely people to follow him and to be his disciples. His invitation was simple: Follow me and love one another. His promise was also very simple: complete joy!
The 2018 Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal makes many of the programs and ministries of the archdiocese possible, enlivening parishes and schools as vibrant places of grace and mercy.
“Happiness for me doesn’t come from things. We have found that we are happiest when we are in front of the Blessed Sacrament,” said Pat. “If everything flows from our faith, it makes us want to share what we have . . . share our faith and our other gifts.
“I guess in that way we have been called to share.”
The McAnanys are helping to lead the 2018 Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal by their example of faithful stewardship and their encouragement of others. But mostly, they are doing it on their knees, asking God to bless everyone in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.
“Just take two minutes today and say three Hail Marys for someone in need,” said Mel, “someone who needs hope or the courage to face suffering.
“Offer these prayers for someone who needs them most. It will be your special gift today to the Archbishop’s Call to Share appeal. It will make a difference.”
