Dear Friends in Christ:
Usually, I am so immersed in things that I do not always stop and pay attention to the enormity of what is required in the normal operations of our parish. Too often, I simply take things for granted. Obviously, Sunday is the most important day of our week. To fulfill our duty to God and to serve His people in this parish requires the efforts of hundreds of people every week. To prepare for Sunday takes our staff and scores of dedicated parishioners all week. To list all the individual tasks would fill this entire bulletin and then some! Then there is the actual weekend itself. The events that most people experience are singular happenings. In reality, it is not one event or liturgy, but multiple and different activities repeated at 90-minute intervals. It is truly quite amazing. While the Holy Mass is the most important thing we do, it is not the only activity that takes place on a weekend. We also have the ancillary work that takes place that allows us to gather for worship, formation, and community – the nursery, traffic control, coffee and donuts, Youth Formation, janitorial work, Adult Formation, Children’s Liturgy of the Word, Marriage Preparation, Baptisms, RCIA, Weddings and Confessions. Our roster for liturgical ministers is over 600 individuals! Most of what happens does so quietly, behind the scenes and without any fanfare. How truly blessed we are!
As we have just celebrated Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, I am going to ask you to join me in thanking God for all the people who generously give of their time and effort with loving kindness and great dedication to provide for all of us. Please pray for them and ask God to bless them and their loved ones. Many spent countless hours throughout Lent serving at the many additional Masses, Stations of the Cross, novenas, and Holy Week liturgies (not to mention preparing 500 tuna fish sandwiches and serving hundreds more Lenten dinners every Friday!). At midnight on Holy Saturday, we had staff working to clean the church after the nearly three-hour Easter Vigil. In the Activity Center, our Parish Life staff was finishing from the reception for the 400 guests celebrating our 60 new Catholics. At 5:30 in the morning on Easter Sunday, the church doors were being opened and the preparations were underway for our Easter sunrise Mass. Throughout the day, thousands upon thousands came to worship in our beautifully decorated church in solemn reverence and Easter joy. Ushers, sacristans, musicians, choir, altar servers, lectors, acolytes, deacons, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, traffic and security officers, facilities staff, greeters, RCIA team, and many, many more gave of themselves so that we could worship and praise God, celebrating the joy of the Risen Lord! How truly blessed we are!
Nothing around our parish “just happens”! Everything is planned, prepared, prayed over, practiced, and executed with love, care, and devotion. Everything is done for the glory and honor of God! The fact that so many can experience and join in our praise of God is a beautiful sign of God’s graces being lavishly poured out upon us. In your prayers, please remember all those who minister in our parish; those who clean our church, care for the sacred linens and vestments, mow the lawn and plant the flowers, answer the phones, keep the AC running, catechize our children in the faith, serve the needy, sing so beautifully at our Masses, care and pray with the sick and elderly at home, in hospitals and care centers, visit those in prison, cook the pancakes, serve the donuts, direct traffic, greet the visitors, create the bulletin, maintain the website, count the collection, pay the bills, prepare the sacred vessels and books, keep the sound system and lights working, arrange the flowers, take care of the candles, open and close the church, help with Baptisms, weddings and funerals, teach in RCIA and Adult Formation and of course serve the seven Sunday liturgies – EVERY WEEK! 52 weekends a year plus Christmas Eve, Christmas, Holy Week, Easter, and all holy days! How truly blessed we are!
In Pace Christi,
Fr. Troy