Greetings in Christ, all!
Right away, I’m asking everyone to save these dates this summer: June 16-18. Why? Because that is the Parish Festival!!!! For the last few years, we have worked with the city to coordinate dates so that we provide the food and music area for their festival. This is a time of a lot of fun and frankly, a nice fundraiser for our parish. Please come, bring your family and enjoy a couple days of happiness.
We will be asking for volunteers as we get closer to the event, but if anyone would like to jump in now and be a part of the planning committee, they would welcome you! They are looking for a couple people to help coordinate the bands and the beverage sales. We really could use some help here.
Speaking of help…
April 23rd is our Spring Clean Up Day, when we go to war on our parish grounds. This is a day and event when we can use all the help we can get! We’ll gather at 9:00 am and work until whenever it’s done, or noon at the latest. Please make sure to give us a hand here. Mark your calendar and watch for more detailed information as the date approaches.
Just as a heads up, we’ll be starting our DSA Appeal the first week of April. This is an annual fundraiser to do our part as members of the diocese and beneficiaries of the structure. When we give to DSA, we are helping the diocese help us, as well as taking care of the most poor and vulnerable in our region. I can’t emphasize strongly enough how important it is that we give this effort a good push. I’ll hit it hard in two weeks.
I know we are asking a lot: DSA, the School Endowment, a couple efforts…I hate asking for all this, but the reality is it’s good for us to pull the rope together. It’s not an easy thing for all of us to be a family, but we need to fight for it. Every parish goes through struggles when the same small group of people carry the weight…let’s work together to make these things happen.
This final item is a bit of an intro to a topic and something we’ll be exploring more later. I’ve noticed lately we seem to be dropping hosts at Mass. If this has happened to you, please don’t worry, this is a normal part of being a human. I think for a lot of us, returning to the faith presents these sorts of challenges and for some of us, getting older is the challenge. Either way, you’ll notice that when we accidentally drop our hosts, we cover the area and treat that area after Mass in a specific way because the very crumbs from that host are holy.
So, we’re doing two things as a response: First, we’re looking into paten that servers will hold while we receive. That way, if anything drops, there is a greater likelihood that we will be able to catch Him before He hits the floor.
Second, we’ll all make an effort to be slow and intentional as we receive so that we treat this Sacred and Blessed Sacrament with great dignity and reverence.
Again, if you’ve dropped a host before (I have!), please don’t worry. This is life. Jesus gets it. I don’t want anyone to feel like this is a correction. This is simply an effort to help us all be able to receive this beautiful gift from God in the safest way possible.
So…we look forward to exciting and defining days ahead for our parish…lots of opportunities to give of ourselves in lots of different ways. Thank you for taking the time to read and think about all this. Please pray that I serve God and you well. I just love being here and I love being your priest.
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