Pastor's Letter-- September 20, 2020

The video for the Annual Bishop’s Appeal is phenomenal. I pray you enjoy watching it this weekend as we begin our parish’s part of the appeal. The diocese continues its mission and the bishop worked to diminish the budget this year for the appeal, thus dropping our parish goal a little. Remember, anything over this goal returns to the parish to support our projects and mission.

Sometimes, or rather more often than not, it feels like a lot is happening in our parish. Even during the strange year of 2020 when we have for months had a lot less inperson activity at the parish, still much has been happening. In some ways I tend to feel like Abraham in the book of Genesis, always traveling, always a new adventure, never “arriving” at the Promised Land. That’s how we live our faith. The whole Christian life is meant to model what Abraham went through, or what the Israelites experienced in Exodus: being called and set free, and then journeying toward home. So I guess it’s okay for me to feel a little travel-wearied at times. Here are some updates on the recent adventures in our parish.

As you saw in last week’s bulletin, we have had new faces in the office. Brenda and Daniel are both doing great so far in their respective work, and we are happy to have more life within these walls, and more people to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet with us every day (or as often as we can manage).

Our Next Generation Parish Envisioning Team is wrapping up its work. We will soon publish a parish plan, I would think before Thanksgiving, that will outline for us what our goals for the next three years are. The on-going process that follows is the implementation. I will have to form a smaller team to help with execution of each of our three pastoral priorities. These may include staff members or key volunteers in the parish. We also will have some new initiatives that will require parishioners to help.

Finally, this will guide some of the decisions for where we spend our energy and resources for the future. Particularly, we want to make sure we are setting the stage for a new culture in the parish. Our Church renovations seem to be near the final stages of diocesan approval. While we have not yet finished the necessary samples for colors, etc., it is my hope to be able to present some finalized renderings of what the church interior will look like in October. This past week I had another meeting with our church architect consultant and our local architect, and progress continues to move ahead with finalizing details.

My ministry at Saint Joseph High School will start to get closer to its usual load, as they are in “mode 2” or “hybrid” learning, where half of the students are present each day. It will be nice to see their eyes (the rest of their faces will be masked!) and hear their voices. Please pray, especially through St. Thérèse, for me to continue to balance well these important duties and make wise decisions, as of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. You all remain in my prayers as we draw closer to the parish feast day!