Greetings in Christ!
Wow…praise God for our first weekend praying Masses in the Hall. I was touched by your joyful and faithful response. I want to share some highlights from the three Masses I prayed:
The Sound:
Oh my Lord, the sound was amazing! I could hear all the readings and while I loved our music before, I cannot believe how much clearer it was. We have fantastic music at Mass and our new sound system made it all the clearer. How blessed we are! I had more than a few people tell me that they could hear better than they had in years. Thank you, Jesus!
The Numbers:
It was a holiday weekend and I know some of you were thinking of switching parishes until we got to our new place, so I found myself slightly worried…turns out there was no need. Thank you with all my heart for staying faithful to coming to our worship and supporting our parish family…wow. Not only did you all come, but a lot of you commented to me on how joyful the spirit was in our community in this new adventure…bless you all!
The lights:
Boy, it was so much brighter with the new ceiling tiles, the decorative partitions and the shiny floors…thank you, God! I really like how bright it was in there.
Finally, I was really touched at all the encouragement so many of you shared about how smoothly and well things flowed. It’s easy to see what is wrong and point it out, but so many of you took the time to express your gratitude and enjoyment of the skill of our wonderful parish staff. Please be sure to thank our staff…what you saw was the result of countless hours of work, practice, meetings, plannings, all of it. We are blessed to have such ridiculously competent people working for us.
Moving on…
The Temperature in the Hall:
Anytime you get people together in a room, temperature is a concern. Those of us in the altar area were very warm, some in the congregation described it as too warm, and some described it as “freezing,” all in the same Mass. Yikes!
It’s tough to figure out because we can get the hall to a good temperature before people arrive, but then we add 500 people and, of course, that changes. So, I’ll ask for two things: patience and sweaters. Please be patient as we figure this out and, if you are a person who tends to find it cold, please bring a sweater to Mass. I think we can all agree that it is much better to have people put on extra clothing than to wear less at a sacred gathering.
Ways to help in this time of transition:
• Pray every time you pass the Church. Ask God to bless and protect those working on it.
• Please make sure to fulfill your pledge to Witness to Hope and/or Restore the Temple. If you are in a position to donate to our efforts toward the Church, please do so: the less we have to borrow, the better.
• Keep coming! Find joy in the transition; not every inconvenience is to be fixed, some of it is simply a thing we adjust to while we are in our temporary spiritual home.
• Help people parking: if you are in a position to do so, try real hard to save the parking lot right outside the door for those who have trouble walking or need to be closer because they are a larger family. If you can, park across the road at the Public School and even serve as a sort of “Crossing Guard” for the people coming across.
• Welcome guests that you see and help them know what is going on and how we are using the bulletin for our Mass aid.
Important Note on Religious Education:
In meeting with our new DRE, we learned that we charge more for Religious Education than is typical and that, apparently, some haven’t been able to come because of the costs. The online form was already set up before we figured this out so we weren’t able to change it, but here is the deal:
If you want to join Religious Education and/or Sacramental Preparation and you cannot afford it, please do not fret. We will adjust the costs for next year and, in the meantime, simply come to the office and pick up a form instead of doing it the online way. If you are in a position to help us cover the costs of Religious Education and/or sacramental help, great, please do so. If not, let it go, sign up and make sure to pray for us.
Upcoming Events:
I wanted to point out a couple events that are definitely worth you checking out:
• There’s a Bible timeline Bible study and it’s first rate. Please check the bulletin for further details on this.
• Also, for all the women in our parish please note that we have a women’s Welcome Weekend retreat coming up and I cannot encourage you strongly enough to go. These retreats have been an amazing part of our parish life for some time now and I’d love for everyone to make sure to go to one.
Bless you all. I love being your priest!
fjk
