Greetings in Christ! I am typing this bulletin article while on break from the retreat I am offering for the priests of the Diocese of Marquette. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL up here and this group of priests are a really nice group to talk with.
A couple interesting notes: the Diocese of Marquette is the largest diocese in the state of Michigan in terms of land size. It encompasses 16,281 square miles in which are about 68,000 Catholics served by 58 diocesan priest and 11 religious priests. To give a sense of things, our diocese is 6,218 square miles and has about 228,000 Catholics. They have a couple more parishes than we do, though obviously, those parishes are much, much smaller. The Bishop here tells me that most of their Catholic population is comprised of people who moved here to retire and, as a result, there are almost no young people in their parishes. Last year, he tells me he confirmed less than 200 kids in the whole diocese, but that they are not shrinking as a Church, is simply because people who have kids move to the lower peninsula… interesting stuff!
I miss you all and I am praying for my two parish families every day that I am here.
I have had a lot of questions about the way the Mass schedule works on the weekends, so I thought I’d take a little space and break it down. The way it was set up is in two Mass sets for each weekend:
Set A:
4:00 Saturday at Holy Family
8:00 Sunday at Holy Family
Confessions 9:30 a.m.
10:00 at Holy Family
Confessions 11:30 a.m.
Set B:
Confessions at St. Mark 4:30 p.m.
5:30 Saturday at St. Mark
9:30 Sunday at St. Mark
12:00 Sunday at Holy Family
5:00 Sunday at Holy Family
So, one week I have “A” and Fr. Dan has “B” and the next week we switch. It’s pretty straightforward once you know the system. I think and I hope this explanation helps. I pray that God bless and guide us into deeper holiness each day!
Your priest,
fjk