2020-07-12 15th sunday in ordinary time

Congratulations to our 11th graders who made their Confirmation this week. I have to say it’s a bit of a different experience to have Confirmation here rather than at the Cathedral, but I think as a whole, it was a good experience. Now, I’d invite you to continue to pray for them. Now, especially, is a difficult time for our young people who look out at the world and aren’t sure where things are going to go in the future. Now that they’ve been strengthened by the Holy Spirit, I do hope they will continue to practice their faith and get involved here at our parish as they head into their senior year of high school.
 
Also this year, our Director of Religious Education, Dee Zernick, has announced her retirement. Dee has served our parish faithfully for many years, first along with her husband and now on her own. We thank her for her many years of service, and wish her the best in her retirement and future endeavors.
 
Now that we’re in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, and I can see our numbers for the year, I really want to say thank you to everyone for your support of your parish in 2019-2020. Considering we had a change in pastor through a bit of a tumultuous transition and we’re still in the middle of a pandemic, we did very well. I’m working along with our Finance Council toward getting all of the numbers in order so that we can soon have a full financial report and budget to present to the parish. As a whole, we did reasonably well, but since we began the year with a lot of uncertainty, there were a few expenses that were deferred, so they’re going to hit in this budget year, including getting the air conditioning fixed on the tabernacle side of the Church. I hope to have that all ready to present in the next few weeks.
 
With Mrs Zernick’s retirement, on Monday we’ll be posting for two positions, first, a new DRE (Director of Religious Education) to take over the Religious Ed program. Because of the time it takes to hire, in the next week or two, I’ll be putting out an online survey about our Religious Education program in the past and some potential directions we could take for the fall. That way, once our new DRE is hired, they’ll be better able to hit the ground running for the fall.
 
The second position is something we’ve needed for quite a while, a maintenance person to manage all the routine maintenance of our facility, and fix-it stuff that needs to happen around the Church. I’ve known we needed a maintenance person for a long time now, but I had to wait until now to see what we could afford.
 
Both positions will be for around 20 hours a week. If you happen to know someone who might be interested in either position, please encourage them to check out the full job description and posting. It will be on our website and the Diocesan website on Monday. Please also pray that we get some good, solid, qualified applicants.
 
In the meantime, thank you again to everyone who has already stepped up as a Eucharistic Minister to visit those unable to come to mass. It’s a wonderful grace to be able to bring Jesus to someone. We’re almost half-way to where we need to be. If you’re a confirmed Catholic and would like to help bring Jesus to someone, please give me a call!
 
God Bless, -Fr Matt