In a Year of Loss, Nancy Summy Finds Blessings in the Gifts of Faith and Community

Before parishioner Nancy Summy joined the Catholic Church in 1980, she had been a nonpracticing Protestant. She regularly attended Mass with her Catholic husband, Dave, and the couple’s three daughters were baptized in the Catholic faith. After Nancy and Dave participated in a Marriage Encounter weekend, Nancy decided to fully enter the Church.

“It was wonderful and just really life-changing,” Nancy says. “With Marriage Encounter, we met as couples every two months. We made a lot of friends and received so much support. It was the beginning of community.”

Inspired by their own experience, Nancy and Dave continued to help with the Marriage Encounter program for over twenty years. When they felt it was time to allow some younger couples to step into the ministry, they remained active in parish life by getting involved with the hospitality side of RCIA. Nancy greatly enjoys the opportunity to “pay it forward” by helping St. Isidore welcome new Catholics into the Church.

“I just keep learning more from the teachers that are presenting with RCIA, and I like that part,” she says. “It’s a great ministry, and to see those people excited about coming into the Church — it makes me relive my own experience.”

Nancy also serves with the St. Vincent de Paul Society. For about 15 years, she has been one of this ministry’s “Wednesday ladies.” Like her involvement in Marriage Encounter and RCIA, Nancy finds her participation in this group to be greatly rewarding.

Perhaps the greatest reward of staying close to Christ is the peace and comfort we find in Him even in the most difficult circumstances.

For many of us, the past year has been challenging. In addition to the struggles we have all faced in the midst of a global pandemic, Nancy has also been dealing with the loss of her beloved husband on Dec. 29, 2019. In her grief, however, she has been able to remain thankful for God’s blessings, including the timing of the funeral last January, when friends and family were able to gather to celebrate Dave’s life just before the pandemic struck. With her faith as a solid foundation in troubled times, Nancy has also been able to find some blessings in the slower pace of this past year.

“We have so much more time to reflect and pray,” she says. “I think I’ve done more reading and praying this year because I didn’t have any place that I had to go, so I’ve had that time to search more, read more, pray more. I did a lot of reading. That’s probably the biggest blessing this year — a lot of quiet time and learning to pray more. Just saying, ‘Guide me, Holy Spirit.’ That part has been good.”

As for the strong Catholic faith that enables her to see the blessings in the midst of so much loss, Nancy is the first to say she has Dave to thank. She also credits Dave’s encouragement as the primary reason all three of the couple’s daughters have stayed in the Church and are now passing the faith down to their own children.

Nancy will always be grateful for the gift of faith that Dave so generously shared with the family.

“His faith was so strong and he just helped lead me,” Nancy says. “And I think you need that, especially in these hard times. They’re not so hard with Jesus, because I feel Him next to me. I’m not really alone, because Jesus is there, and that is a big comfort.”

Along with the abiding example of faith Nancy had in her husband, the faith community here at St. Isidore has also been an uplifting presence in her life. She is thankful for the blessing of 24-hour adoration, the many parish ministries, and the extraordinarily loving people in the St. Isidore faith family.

“I feel so fortunate,” Nancy says. “We have a wonderful parish and wonderful priests, and the seminarian this year is an extra blessing. This whole church community — these friends — I don’t know what I’d do without them. Their concern is so genuine. I feel like they’ve gotten me through.

“It all makes me want to reach out to other people, too,” she adds. “It’s been a year and I feel like, ‘God what do you want me to do now?’ That’s what I’m praying now, just for Him to guide me. I know He’s got something for me to do.”