Dear Parishioners,
Next weekend our new Mass Schedule goes into effect. Please take home the insert in today’s bulletin as a reminder and tell your friends. The change will be an inconvenience for our 4:30 Sunday worshipers. I hope as many as possible can join us at one of the other two evening Masses or at our two morning Masses. There is room for all of us.
Our daily Mass Schedule also changes. St. Mary’s only had an evening Mass, so we will now offer one at 5:10pm three days a week. It’s the same time as on holydays. Hopefully, we will be able to provide an opportunity for prayer to downtown workers on their way home from a long workday.
For parents who had children attending ISR this past year, I beg your patience. We will have religious education classes in the Fall. They will be held at the school on S. Main. I am looking at Adult religious education and formation programs as well. There is a wealth of programs available to help strengthen our faith, knowledge and spiritual life as Catholics. We want to do all we can to assist parents in their obligation to instruct their children in the Catholic faith.
These weeks we have had some fruitful discussions about our three outreach programs to the homeless and hungry in the area. A good number of parishioners have been reaching out to the hungry at this site for over 30 years. We have discussed how we can coordinate serving times, volunteers (and we need more), and resources in a way that the needy can be fed physically while others come to be fed spiritually for Mass and other Sacraments.
In celebration of the Assumption of Mary, we will pray the Rosary together a half-hour before each of the weekend Masses on August 14 and 15. Please join us.
I want to express my thanks to all of you have prayed for me and the parish. What a blessing! I’m grateful the Lord has sent me. There is much to do but I believe if we pull together we will find “something greater than Jonah here” – Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is what matters to the Father. May Christ keep our eyes fixed on the things of heaven this week. Let’s keep looking up.
In Christ’s Peace, Fr. Dan
