Greetings in Christ!
I’m writing this article way ahead of time, but when I finished last week’s article, I figured, why not keep going? Much like I do in my homilies sometimes…haha.
So, last week I shared with you about where we are going with the Church building itself. Some of this is happening because at the Priest Convocation we were invited to work out what we hope, what we work for, what our goals are, etc.
In terms of our future, I obviously hope to continue our work on the Church that I shared with you. The Mass is at the heart of who we are as Catholics and so it all begins and ends with our Church.
Beyond our Church building, I think about our school a lot. I’m working on a fund for tuition and I know our diocese has a very aggressive plan for helping with tuition as well. I don’t know if you remember this, but the biggest part of the Witness to Hope Campaign was to establish an endowment for Catholic education and that worked really well. I think I already told you this, but what the diocese learned in offering so much help was that a lot of help is needed to deal with the rising cost of education. God has gotten so SO far, I know He’ll meet us there too.
As I’ve shared, our bricks and mortar need work and the way the property drains water and salt is a huge issue for us. We’ll be going after that too.
We’ve got a BIG year of change coming in our care for the poor. We do a great job at this and Msgr. (now Bishop!) Vincke started a fantastic idea with Deacon Denny that is finally reaching fruition. The idea is to work with other Christian Churches that want to help us serve the poor. Doing so will expand our ability to help and further our care for the most vulnerable members of our society. This is a central work of Christianity and I’ll be sharing some great news about all of that.
I also have been working on personal goals, small and large. I want to serve you well and continue to take good care of my dad, but I also recognize I need to be more conscious of taking care of myself: taking walks, stopping before I get wiped out, etc.
One of the things I want to work on as well is my habit of making fun of myself. A couple of you lovingly shared with me that you don’t like it when I call myself dumb or make negative comments about myself. My Mom hated that too and I think I’ve let my guard down there. Once it was pointed out to me twice in a 24-hour stretch, I made an effort to notice and I see I’ve really got into that habit again. I’ve taken it to prayer and I’m going to continue to go to war on that.
Fr. Le and I want to strive to have prayer times together and we are making a schedule of little 15-minute prayer times each day where we head over to the Church and check in with Jesus twice a day together. I’m excited about that.
So…lots of updates…our future is filled with wonderful challenges and blessings. All that we are called to comes down to a simple idea: We Pray, we serve, we grow. This is what Christians do and everything in this parish will continue to move toward that divine hyperfocus.
Thank you for letting me be a part of this family. I’m so very blessed.
fjk