Joy Medley Reflects On Faith, Family And Serving Our Parish Community

If you have been a part of the St. Mark faith community bigger part of making other people feel just as welcome for a while, you have most likely seen parishioner and in our parish community.

Liturgical Director Joy Medley helping out around the “I think working on the liturgy team, you feel like church in countless different ways! Even when she still you are bringing people together and bringing the had all four children and her niece at home, Joy made Eucharist to people,” she says. “That is just the highest time for parish life. For Joy, the desire to spend time in honor to me, and it is really rewarding.” our community all comes down to the value of personal In addition to her duties as Liturgical Director — 6 Saint Mark relationships — with her own family, with our parish family, and with God. Joy and her husband, Keith, joined St. Mark following a move to the area 13 years ago and immediately felt at home here. When Joy was asked to take on the role of Liturgical Director in 2013, she was happy to become a which includes the scheduling and training of about 350 liturgical volunteers — Joy continues to stay engaged in various other ministries. She teaches firstgrade Religious Education classes, serves as a tribunal advocate and a member of the Pastoral Council, and is leading the parish’s capital campaign.

Parish involvement has always been a part of life for Joy. She and Keith had also been active members of their previous church, in Kentucky. Their time at St. Mark, however, has inspired them to dig even more deeply into their relationships with God and their fellow parishioners. After participating in the ACTS retreat, the Medleys felt a renewed passion for the faith. Later, a personal loss brought Joy even closer to our parish family.

“My sister died three years ago, and I was getting cards from people that belonged to the parish that I didn’t even know,” she says. “That overwhelmed me — the fact that the community is so close, that it is a family and they mourned with me. What people need to know about St. Mark is that people are there for you. Even if they don’t know you well, they know you are from St. Mark and that makes you family. So that changed me, too.”

In addition to the inspiration she draws from her fellow parishioners, Joy also finds a great example of a servant’s heart in our very own Fr. George.

“Father is a one of a kind,” she says. “He has helped build my faith over the years. Father makes things real because he walks the walk — he does what he asks of us. He makes it easy to follow and be a part of the church.”

Joy views her personal relationship with the Lord as fundamental to her faith life and strives to spend as much time with God and His people as she can.

“I think a lot of us think going to church on Sunday is like checking something off a list, but it’s really about having a relationship with Christ,” she says. “Just like when we have relationships with our friends, husband and children, it requires time to build that. There will be good days and bad days. There have been times I’ve sat in adoration mad or sad, and that’s okay — He still wants us to come. But you have to spend that time and work at that relationship to make it whole and fulfilling.”

Now that the Medleys’ children are older — ranging in age from 13 to 27 — and they have five grandchildren as well, they can see the fruits of the faith they instilled in them over the years. With a deep reverence for building and nurturing relationships, Joy has stayed close to her family, her faith community and God — she now feels blessed to watch her children do the same.

“I think [living out our faith] is what we’re called to do,” Joy says. “We have to lead by example, and I think that’s how we spread our faith — by showing people how to be Catholic by the way we live and the things we do. I think you do just need to dive in and not look back. And you do it for your children, too, so they see it, and then when they leave home and they are still going to Mass, that’s when you see it coming back, and all the giving comes back to you.”