January 7, 2024
+JMJ
Dear Parishioners,
A Blessed New Year to all of you! Thank you to everybody who made our Advent and Christmas liturgies beautiful! – the decorators, the cantors, the musicians, the greeters and ushers, the servers, lectors and extraordinary Eucharistic distributors. I believe our Lord was well-worshiped by our efforts!
I leave Sunday afternoon, January 7, for a vacation with a couple other priests. Next weekend, you will have a priest from Cross Catholic Outreach covering the Masses. When people ask me what charity is the best one to support, the most trustworthy with the money collected, I quickly respond "Cross Catholic Outreach". This past fall I was contacted by a staff member of Cross Catholic Outreach, wondering if we as a parish would want to take on a project, such as building a home for a family in South America (Advent project), or digging a well for a village in Africa (Lenten project). I am not sure if we would be able to handle such a project, but we received some information; and the pastoral leadership team will at least talk about the possibility. The idea is that we would provide money for these projects; i.e., we would not expect parishioners to travel to these places.
On a final note, we had at least one car burglarized during Saturday afternoon Mass a couple weeks ago. Four different security cameras around our parking lots caught the action of the thief. After passing in front of the public library on North Wood Street, he stepped into our largest parking lot and randomly tested the doors of a handful of cars. Where he found a door unlocked, he bent into the car, or even sat in the front seat of the car, and quickly searched for valuables. Next, he went to the small parking lot just south of College Avenue and did the same. Finally, he went to the parking lot immediately west of the church and did the same. This is the parking lot from which he stole something that got reported to us, and led to our review of the security camera footage, and the arrest of the culprit. Please always make sure that your car is locked in our parking lots, and that you have nothing valuable visible that might tempt a thief to break a window and snatch that valuable.
Have a blessed week!
In cordibus Iesu, Mariae et Iosephus,
Father Poggemeyer