Pastor's Column for July 29, 2018

Our thanks to all those who coordinated the Parish Picnic that many enjoyed last Sunday...and to all who setup, cleaned up, brought food or served food. Rarely do you find a hamburger that is large enough to stick out from the bun, or a hot dog that fills the bun completely! To me these are great and important advances in the hamburger and hotdog indus- tries. You probably think I’m getting too excited over this, but I appreciate the small things in life (or I should say the larger things, like hamburgers & hot dogs). Many brought food which complimented the main course, and the desserts were the icing on the cake & the cherry on the top (how about those puns). The rain held off & the weather turned out to be perfect for such an event. It was so good we’ll do it again next year.

I hear there is going to be an event (i.e. more food available) at the corner of Pearl & Broadview this Sunday so I’m going to try to check it out. As we always welcome members of the surrounding community to join us for events like our parish festival, it’s good for us to support the community out- side of our parish. Maybe I’ll see you there.

The good priests at St. Albert the Great have an annual Summer Steak Roast for the clergy so Fr. Vesely & I do our best to attend every year so I’ll be picking him up from Mt. Alverna on Friday. But you’ll have a chance to see him & say hello this weekend as he will be celebrating the 4pm Mass. He is doing great and they continue to appreciate his priestly ministry at Mt. Alverna.

Enough about food. But I do want to mention a place where food is eaten. We had a new floor put in the school cafeteria last week as the former one has several chips & cracks due to all the traffic in that space as it is the main way that people enter the building & of course our children enjoy their lunches there during the school year. Our principal, Denise Burns, was able to secure a grant for a good portion of it so thanks to her as we continue to keep our buildings safe and attractive.

Father Lux, our first Pastor, was known as an excellent administrator, though he was also pretty tough as many priests were in those days. Someone said of him, “Father did what he wanted. You could do whatever you wanted as long as he wanted it.” That sounds like a great way to lead. I think I’ll try that too. I also heard a story about how an all-male choir was singing a long Creed at Sunday Mass. Finally Fr. Lux turned around from the altar & said “That’s enough!” I guess brevity was a value for him. I would never say such a thing to our choir, even when I am thinking it (though to be clear, I would never think it either).