CRYSTAL LAKE—St. Thomas the Apostle Parish will celebrate 10 years of SPRED (Special Religious Development) this month with an anniversary SPRED Mass, open to all, on April 26 at 1:30 p.m. at the Oak Street church at 451 W. Terra Cotta Ave. A light reception will follow.
SPRED serves children and adults with developmental and cognitive disabilities, seizure disorders and learning disabilities. Through SPRED, these friends learn “that they are loved by God and are persons of honor and dignity,” says the St. Thomas brochure about the program. The SPRED ministry serves four age groups: 6-10, 11-16, 17-21, and 22+. The St. Thomas group currently hosts the SPRED 22+ age group.
Coordinator/chairperson Beth Montanaro notes that SPRED volunteers reached this 10-year milestone after managing to do virtual meetings with the SPRED friends during the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions. Two groups now meet at the parish one to two times a month on Saturday mornings and Monday evenings, with breaks in summer and winter. There also is an Hispanic SPRED group at St. Thomas.
On March 28, the regular SPRED session welcomed six friends and several volunteers, including helper catechist Mike Brucker who mentions “the joy it brings to the kids” as part of his motivation to be involved. “Brian will tell us he loves coming here — about 35 times,” he says with a grin. A neighbor of the Montanaros, Brucker has volunteered for six or seven years with St. Thomas’ SPRED.
Each of the SPRED small faith communities include six SPRED friends, six helper catechists, one leader catechist, one activity catechist and one chairperson. Much of the two-hour gathering is designed to be calming. Volunteers speak softly throughout the three main parts of a SPRED meeting: activities, symbolic catechesis and agape sharing.
Leslie Smith, an activity catechist, shows off two filled, bookcase-like units that hold a wide variety of options for the first part of the SPRED meeting. “It’s been six years of joyous, amazing memories,” Smith says of her time with SPRED. “There’s a reason I’m here … somebody appreciates (me) being here.”
At 9 a.m., volunteers and friends gather in one room at tables and work quietly with each friend’s activity of choice — with paint, clay, water or sand, or various multi-sensory objects. The activities are done in a calm silence.
At the end of the 40-minutes activity time, all are invited to quietly show off their crafty results. Each volunteer then goes with his or her assigned friend into another room for a faith celebration, which lasts about 25 minutes.
On March 28, Anthony Montanaro presents at prayer time, focusing the circle’s attention first on rain, showing pictures of rainy scenes and inviting thoughts about rain and God. A few minutes of quietly listening to the sounds of a rain stick is followed by Anthony’s prayer for each person before everyone wipes their hands with sanitizer and proceeds to the window-filled Agape room for 20 minutes of snacks, visiting, prayer and song. One friend, Miguel, expertly brings a box of noise/music makers around the table so each friend, volunteer and guest can choose something to shake or tap or pluck as everyone sings along to a recorded song.
At about 11 a.m., parents come for their children, and volunteers clean up, winding up what was a splendidly simple and rather elegant session. Anthony explains that the catechists and leaders earlier did a dry run of the program when they also shared their thoughts as a prayer community and “that’s amazing.”
“When we can bring a lesson about God, no matter at any level, you can see (the friends) get it,” Anthony adds.
Before coming to St. Thomas in 2021, Father Robert Jones, pastor, says he had never experienced SPRED, but he quickly adds that “it’s needed,” and “I’d recommend it.”
His “important but small” part includes the sacraments, including a one-to-one confession ceremony that is approved by the Catholic Church, he says. Repetition and easier responses are part of that offering, and Father Jones notes that he has attended a training provided by the SPRED Office in Chicago. Father Jones also has provided a family Mass for SPRED families that “seems to work out great,” he says.
Before the pandemic, there were nine parishes in the Rockford Diocese that offered SPRED programs.
Today, besides St. Thomas only one other parish in the diocese — St. Thomas More in Elgin — currently offers SPRED.
But March 28 visitor Jennifer Slad, a parishioner at St. Mary Parish in Huntley, is working to start a new SPRED group there, and two other parishes are mentioned as being interested sites for SPRED in the near future.
History of SPRED
SPRED began in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In 1960, Father James McCarthy became the associate director of the CCD office for the Archdiocese of Chicago. While there, he came across a file of letters from family members of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who were seeking faith formation and access to the sacraments of initiation. The priest knew this reality all too well since he had a younger brother with disabilities.
After much discernment and prayer, Father McCarthy embarked on a mission to provide catechesis and spiritual nourishment to people with disabilities. He began researching, but struggled to find an appropriate catechetical model.
In 1963, Sacred Heart Sister Mary Therese Harrington, SH, came to help. Seeking guidance from the leaders of her community in Paris, Sister Mary Therese discovered the Method Vivre that was developed by Father Jean Mesny of Lyons and the doctoral thesis of priest-psychologist Father Euchariste Paulhus of the University of Sherbrook in Quebec, Canada. Their work laid the foundation for the SPRED ministry.
In 1964, SPRED-Chicago began officially collaborating with Father Mesney and Father Paulhus, and SPRED’s intuitive model — grounded in relationships and the use of symbol — began to take shape.
SPRED’s unique method develops a sense of the sacred, a sense of Christ, and a sense of the Church. The use of objects, pictures or music
stirs memories of life experiences and sharing those draws the faith community together emotionally to nurture a sense of self-worth and of being in communion. A memory of liturgy or sacrament then draws the small SPRED community emotionally into communion with
the larger Church.
In 1966, SPRED officially became an agency of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and Father McCarthy was able to hire additional staff and grow the ministry. In 1968, the staff of the SPRED agency began focusing on establishing SPRED ministries in the parishes of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
As the SPRED Ministry grew in Chicago, advocates and religious educators from around the world began contacting the SPRED agency to learn more. Slowly, SPRED ministry was introduced in dioceses across the United States. SPRED staff also began advising representatives from other Christian denominations and faith traditions.
In 1984, the first SPRED community was established in the Diocese of Glasgow in Scotland. A few years later, they built an observation and training center, which continues to serve as the SPRED hub for the United Kingdom and Europe.
In 1997, the first SPRED community was established in the Diocese of Johannesburg in South Africa. SPRED communities have since been established in three other dioceses in South Africa.
Since 2000, dioceses in Mexico, Central America and South America have worked to establish SPRED.
In 2020, Joe Quane, MAPS, a committed SPRED catechist, trainer, volunteer and protégé of Father McCarthy, was named executive director of SPRED. In 2024, the SPRED office moved to the Cardinal Meyer Center at 3525 South Lake Park Avenue, Chicago.
The SPRED office provides orientation and training for SPRED catechists, collaborates with all the dioceses around the world that have SPRED ministries and organizes and facilitates an international gathering of diocesan SPRED leaders. The office also provides new lesson plans each year.
The ministry, says the archdiocesan website, is now found in 110 parishes throughout the archdiocese, 19 dioceses in the United States and seven countries around the world.
