Thanks to all who joined us for the 11am Mass with Bishop Malesic last Sunday as we began our year-long celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the Parish. I’m grateful especially to those who set up the luncheon in Lux Hall following the Mass. We will post some pictures of the event on our website and via our Instagram account. It was good to have the Bishop celebrate the Eucharist with us and visit our parish for the first time. We look forward to him coming again.
This Friday I will be celebrating a funeral Mass for Anthony Arlia who died at the age of 87. I visited with him a couple weeks ago and anointed him at his home as he told me stories of his time in Italy when he was in the army. He built the house that he and his wife Rose have lived in for many years. They would have been married 50 years next month. I saw the great care that Rose had for Tony as she stood by his bedside, tending to all his needs. May she now have comfort and may her husband find peace in God’s presence.
Our annual Parish Festival will be next weekend, October 21st & 22nd. As always, I am very grateful to the many parishioners who spend a lot of time and energy planning, setting up, working at and then finally cleaning up for that two-day event. It’s a great opportunity to see people of the parish come together to enjoy each other’s company and to celebrate the faith that has sustained us for almost 75 years. Thank you especially to all those who sold raffle tickets. Per my custom, I will NOT be picking the winning tickets as it’s a sure way to make a couple of friends and a lot of enemies! Not really, but I’d still rather leave that task up to someone else. I look forward to seeing many of you here next weekend.
We have a good number of people signed up for the trip to Italy in March and I know that several others are in the process of submitting their registration forms. I’d like to encourage you to do that soon if you haven’t already & are planning on joining us. The company making the arrangements needs to know how many reservations to make for the hotels, events, etc. that they are setting up for us so while you still have time, sooner is better than later.
Last weekend we had books available for you to take home called “Holy Moments.” It is written by Matthew Kelly who has written a number of the books we have given away at Christmas and Easter in past years and is an easy read. We wanted to offer something as we began our anniversary year so please be sure to take one home with you if you haven’t already. We’ll have another book for you at Christmas & hope you find them helpful in your spiritual journey.
I really like the idea of giving away these books to you from time to time as I find such spiritual reading so helpful for my own spiritual growth. I am always learning more about faith and it’s impact on my life, and am especially interested these days on how we understand and express faith in the Catholic Tradition. So many people do not realize the incredible treasury of wisdom that we have in the Catholic Church! And so much of that wisdom comes to us from both contemporary authors as well as canonized saints of the past. I continue to wonder how people in our world today survive without the faith and guidance that comes to us through the Church. Life is difficult enough with faith, and would seem impossible for me without faith. So thank you for the living faith that you continue to express by your presence here each weekend.