Diocese’s medical ministry hosts national visitors at St. Alphonsus site
By Emily Booker
The campus of St. Alphonsus Church in Crossville was a popular destination recently for out-of-state observers who wanted to see firsthand the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic in action.
On Aug. 27, the Legacy Clinic (SMLC) hosted several guests from Catholic Extension Society and DePaul University who spent the day experiencing the clinic at one of its newest sites.
Catholic Extension representatives visited the clinic to learn more about Sister Mary Lisa Renfer, RSM, the SMLC medical director who had recently been named a finalist for the esteemed lay organization’s Lumen Christi Award.
The Lumen Christi Award is the highest honor given by Catholic Extension, whose nonprofit work supports and strengthens mission dioceses across the United States, including the Diocese of Knoxville.
“Sister Mary Lisa and really the entire clinic has been nominated for our highest honor, the Lumen Christi Award. So, our goal today is to kind of help tell the story, get the word out. Hopefully that will result in some resources coming your way to help expand this ministry,” said Joe Boland, chief mission officer for Catholic Extension.
Sister Mary Lisa was announced as the 2024 recipient of the Lumen Christi Award in late September.
The Lumen Christi recipient is given a $25,000 grant, along with an additional $25,000 grant for the nominating diocese. Bishop Mark Beckman has said the full $50,000 will go to the Legacy Clinic.
On their Aug. 27 visits, Catholic Extension representatives interviewed several of Sister Mary Lisa’s patients and talked to them about their experiences with SMLC.
“I’ve been working with Catholic Extension for 16 years, and I’ve had the privilege to come down to this great diocese many times, and it’s always a delight, always a pleasure to be here,” Mr. Boland said.
“One of the things for us when we come here is we experience a missionary spirit in this diocese and a real desire to go to the margins, to care for God’s people, whether they’re Catholic or not,” he added.
Two graduate students from DePaul, a private Catholic research university in Chicago, also were visiting the Crossville clinic to meet with SMLC volunteers. Zach Ellis and Aaron Nguyen are studying community psychology and researching the needs of a community and how research and advocacy can address those needs.
They were put in contact with SMLC through a faculty adviser who had visited the clinic through an earlier trip with Catholic Extension.
“We’ve been working with St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic for little over a year now doing a couple different programs and projects, trying to help out,” Mr. Ellis said. His background is health-care research and community-building.
Volunteers gather to pray and go over information before the Aug. 27 clinic at St. Alphonsus in Crossville.
“The first project we did was interviews with volunteers centered around how did they get involved, what were their motivations for getting involved, trying to get their perspective on how this has impacted them both professionally, personally, how they have come to understand the needs in the different communities,” he added. “That helped to inform this survey, which we just rolled out this past spring and has led into the summer. That is kind of a follow-up on stress and satisfaction of the volunteering experience, motivations, what kind of sense of community does St. Mary’s provide for the volunteers.”
Mr. Ellis said he was glad for the opportunity to meet some of the volunteers face-to-face and get to know one another on a deeper level than just survey responses.
Mr. Nguyen’s background is in health behaviors, especially substance use, in rural areas.
“I think my big focus is to empower the voices of the people rather than to come in and dictate what things should be. I think that a big part of what we do is that we try to involve the community partners into the decision-making process as much as possible,” Mr. Nguyen said.
He added that he’s hoping to do a survey of patients at the Divine Mercy Parish clinic site as well.
“There’s a lot of challenges working with this population because there’s not a lot of Vietnamese volunteers capable of translating medical terms,” he pointed out.
He wanted to research the needs of the patients, the resources of the clinic, and then try to match the clinic’s capabilities with the needs of the patient as much as possible.
He noted that while there are some language barriers and communication issues, he’s found the staff and volunteers are “guided by very strong faith and a charitable cause of giving to the patients of the community.”
The DePaul students hope their work will help not only SMLC and its patients but also offer an understanding of the health-care needs of rural patients.
Sister Mary Lisa reaffirmed that commitment to listening to the needs of and serving her patients.
“Our goal is to bring the love of Christ to them so that they know that they have dignity and they have worth and that they are worthy of excellent medical care. They are worthy to be treated as a whole human person just because of who they are as a child of God,” she said.
“What happens from the first moment that they walk in, from our hospitality volunteers—their kindness, their smiles—they’re treating them with such love and dignity. And then all the way through the experience, our goal is to keep building them up,” she added.
Martin Vargas, SMLC executive director, shared with the Catholic Extension and DePaul University visitors how the clinic has grown and evolved.
In the past year, the clinic has seen 24 percent growth, with the percentage of patients who are Hispanic having grown from 25 percent to 35 percent. The clinic has added two new clinic sites, in Crossville and Pigeon Forge. There are now more than 125 volunteers who assist not only in medical exams but in driving, hospitality, triage, and more.
And the Legacy Clinic is working with community partners to offer more services from health screenings to job searches to winter clothing.
“Each of our clinics is different. So, what you find is they are coming to see us for localized, faith-based care and where they need and how they need us,” Mr. Vargas said.
The visitors toured the clinic, where Sister Mary Lisa walked them through the steps of setting up a mobile clinic, from the landing gear to setting up the triage station to bringing food and clothes for patients they know are experiencing homelessness.
“It takes a whole team, and it’s a lot of teamwork for the patient care as well as the set-up and take-down of the clinic. But we have a great group that works well together to get it done,” Sister Mary Lisa said.
The visitors also checked out the recently dedicated St. Alphonsus Church and St. Alphonsus Community Services, which provides food and support to people in need in the Cumberland County community.
“I think what we experience at this parish, St. Alphonsus Liguori, is the Gospel put into practice,” Mr. Boland said.
“Here we have a health clinic that is attending to people’s medical needs, that beautiful new church that was dedicated last year, which is attending to people’s spiritual needs. So, the health needs are taken care of, their spiritual needs, and also people’s physical needs as well as St. Alphonsus Community Services to see how people are caring really for mind, body, and soul. And that holistic approach to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy is the Church at her best. That is the Gospel put into practice. That is something that we celebrate at Catholic Extension,” he observed.
A Catholic Extension team gets photography and videography of the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic and Sister Mary Lisa in action as the medical ministry visits St. Alphonsus Church in Crossville. (Photo Emily Booker)
For many of its patients, SMLC is the face of the Catholic Church. It offers not just health care but compassion and hope to those in most need in the community.
“My goal here is to bring that light of Christ to each person that I meet, and I think that that’s the goal of all of us who work together with the clinic,” Sister Mary Lisa said. “I think the beauty of this clinic is that this is an area where not many people have met a Catholic before, much less a religious sister, and so this is their picture they get of the Church. It’s coming out to meet them where they’re at with the love of Christ. Please, God, that they remember that, that this is what the Lord desires of them, to bring healing and wholeness, and they can receive that through the Church.”
Mr. Boland and Catholic Extension witnessed Sister Mary Lisa and the SMLC team being the face, hands, and feet of Jesus.
“To see the faces of these joyful, young Sisters of Mercy bringing light and hope and healing into people’s lives is just such a beautiful thing to witness,” Mr. Boland said. “We hope that more people in seeing this beautiful ministry will come to realize that the Gospel, the Church, is still a relevant force in today’s world, perhaps now more than ever. And so this is taking the Gospel and putting it into practice in 2024. That’s what we’re witnessing today.”
He said Catholic Extension was excited to share the inspiring stories of the Church in East Tennessee with a wider audience.
“Catholic Extension has been a partner with the Diocese of Knoxville for many decades now, and you all are doing the heavy lifting, doing the work on the ground on the front lines. To be able to visit parishes and communities all across East Tennessee to see what that looks like, to see how you put faith in action, is really something that is not only a blessing to us but hopefully to all the people who are part of Catholic Extension Society,” Mr. Boland shared.
