From The Pastor's Desk

From Fr. Chris N:

             I am very pleased to say that the Summer International Festival went very well and was a great success.

             In the Gospel reading from Matthew on Wednesday evening, July 9th, the inaugural mass for the opening of the festival,  our Lord is told that his Mother and brothers and sisters are waiting for him outside.  Jesus responds, “Who is my mother, who are my brothers?  Then, looking at the disciples seated around the table he said, “Here is my mother, here are my brothers and sisters, they are the ones who do the will of my Father in heaven.”  Our Lord here is redefining what it means to be FAMILY.   It is our faith in our Lord that binds us closer together than perhaps even our own blood relations.  This is what being a parish is all about.  WE ARE OUR LORD’S FAMILY!  This is most evident when we are gathered around his altar at the Eucharist and it was most evident as we were gathered, working together, at the Summer Festival, 2008.

We are also the sons and daughters of the Virgin Mary in heaven.  What is the one thing that a mother loves to see?  Her children getting along with one another and  working together.

The St. Mary’s International Summer Festival is a condensed four days of hard work and dedication.  We as a parish family together striving towards a common goal.

As Pastor of this family, I would like to thank our Lord and our loving Mother for the success of our Festival, for the good weather, for bringing us together.  But especially for all of you, the parishioners, who made this event such a great success.

God’s Blessings Always,  Fr. Chris N.

Parish Survey:  The parish survey has been completed!  The results of the parish survey which was initiated by the Parish Council will be in the bulletin in the next couple of weeks.   Your feedback is very interesting.  Some of the  feedback fit quite well with the input of the Liturgy Committee, which meets every second Monday of the month.  For Christmas and Easter we will have at least one or more masses in the Church.  Also, Holy Thursday Mass and the Easter Vigil will be celebrated in the Church.  Thank you for your input and taking ownership of YOUR PARISH.

Stewardship:  I know for many people, the word STEWARSHIP is a nasty word.  However, we will be doing a renewal of TIME, TALENT, AND TREASURE in the very near future.  We have to because this is your parish.   If you want to see more activities, as many of you have indicated in the survey, YOUR PARTICIPATION AND INITIATIVE ARE REQUIRED.

We will be starting with TREASURE only because we are loosing money every week ($2,500). I will be asking for a slight increase ($6/week) in every parishioner’s weekly contribution so that we can meet our weekly expenses.  In the next couple of weeks I will be sending out a mailing (please don’t throw it out) explaining the increase and how we are trying to cut expenses.  We will also have witness speakers at all the masses to explain what the expenses of the parish are, how we spend money, and how they as parishioners contribute to their parish.