Greetings in Christ, all!
Wow…great things are happening and I’m so excited to update you all.
Let’s start with the organ pipes.
Hopefully, as you read this, you can see them in the church. What you cannot see is that there are almost 1,000 individual pipes. When we removed them from storage, they were quite dirty and I’m so so so grateful for all the amazing people who came to the church on Tuesday and helped us clean them. Were it not for the many selfless and diligent people who showed up, we would not be looking at those pipes being up so early. Thank you with all of my heart: everything goes better at the parish when people throw in.
If you don’t see organ pipes in the church, it’s because something went wrong and I don’t want to talk about it. 🙂
It’ll take about a week to get all the air lines and electronic parts hooked up, as well as tuning the organ. Once it’s all done, we will have a Blessing of the Organ before each Mass. This may be as early as next weekend. The Catholic Church teaches us that pipe organs are a special instrument in worship and we are so grateful to have them back!
Now, this is all leaving a big gap in the wall in the gathering area. Just as a reminder, we are having statues coming for that area. We will rework the wood that is there and end up with a beautiful arrangement of statues of the Twelve Apostles…praise God. Those statues are being carved right now in Italy by the same folks who did our Mary and Joseph statues. I can’t wait!
Thank you with all my heart for all the generous donors who stepped forward and helped us get these pipes moved and for those who adopted the apostle statues… God is good!
On September 14th, we begin our new Religious Education program which we call Family Formation. The sessions will be held on scheduled Sundays and start at 9:15 am, break for the 10 am Mass and then resume after Mass. For the session after Mass, I will be teaching the adults while our volunteers teach our kids by grade. If you haven’t signed up yet, please be sure and do so. If you are in a position to volunteer to help with this program, it’s only two Sundays a month and is not a big time commitment. Please call the parish office asap and let them know you are ready to jump in!
I’d like to close on a personal note. My Mom’s birthday is September 8th and I want to thank Jesus for her. She was a great mom and I miss her every day.
Also, September 8th is the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary so I encourage you to stop by the Church and ask Our Blessed Mother to pray for you, your family and our Church.
I love you guys and I love being your priest.
Fjk