I had a funeral home service for Donald Novak on Saturday, September 17th. Don was the husband of Bette Novak, whose funeral Mass I celebrated last November. Don was not Catholic but would attend Mass with his wife Bette when he was well enough to do so. Unfortunately, Don suffered from dementia for many years and I remember talking to his wife about that a number of times when she would come for the 8am Sunday Mass. May they be together again and join in the praise of God in the heavenly kingdom.

Congratulations to Kristen Breitmeyer (from St. Leo’s) & Kyle Kadlec who are getting married this weekend. May they both enjoy a long and fruitful marriage.

We also welcome Sam Zint who is being baptized this Sunday. May the Lord bless him and his parents (married here at St. Leo’s) as they begin their family.

Next Saturday, October 1st, we will have our annual Pet Blessing at 11:30am (weather-permitting) at our outdoor Marian Shrine. May St. Francis of Assisi intercede for us as we enjoy these creatures that God has made for our enjoyment. 

I wanted to thank you for your patience if you have reached out to me via email or voicemail. These modern tools of technology are both a blessing and a curse! They are a blessing because they allow people to make contact with others, but they can also overwhelm at times. I do my best to return both emails and voicemails as quickly as possible, but I do prioritize so please know that I respond not “in the order that they are received” but according to priority. If I have an email where someone is sharing pictures they took on their vacation, I won’t  respond as quickly as I would to a voicemail that someone is in need of being anointed. I want you to know that I appreciate everyone’s attempt to make contact with me, but I apologize if I’m not able to respond to you in a timely manner due to the sometimes overwhelming number of calls and emails I receive (not to mention texts as well). At a pastor’s workshop I attended a number of years ago, I remember them saying that email is the work of the devil! And to some extent, I’m inclined to agree. But again, it’s a tool that enables people to reach out to us in ways they couldn’t before. I also want to let you know that if you don’t hear back from me, especially after calling, very often that is because I call the number back only to receive a message that “this voicemail box has not been set up yet” or “I’m sorry but this voicemail box is full and cannot accept any more messages.” It can be challenging especially for older people to know how to deal with the complexity of setting up voicemail on their cell phone or to know how to retrieve the messages. So if you don’t hear back from me, please don’t hesitate to give another call as that is likely the reason.  

I also want to let you know that when our livestreaming technology is not available, especially on a weekend, it is likely due to the fact that our internet service is down, and unfortunately our IT (“Internet technology”) company does not work on the weekend so we have to wait until Monday (at least) for the problem to be resolved. Our phone system is also driven by the internet, so if you can’t get through to us with a phone call, that is also likely the reason. However we figured out a way to continue to use livestreaming using a cell phone and a mobile hotspot should the internet go down, and we are going to try to have phone calls forwarded to my cell phone should our phone system go down as well so we’ll do our best to deal with these technology issues as best we can.