Dear Parish Family,
The Church’s liturgical year comes to an end this Saturday, and a new one begins Nov. 29 with the first Sunday of Advent! On Nov. 9, I was walking in a mall and already there was a Santa booth. We were still nearly three weeks from the season of Advent, and our consumeristic world was already celebrating Christmas season!
We as Catholics need to be careful, or we will miss out on the beauty of the season of Advent as a time of spiritual preparation for the coming of the Christ. I urge you as your pastor to try to avoid the materialism of the season and focus on preparing your heart so that the spirit of Christ may enter more deeply and transform you into the person God calls each of us uniquely to be.
Save the Date – Dec. 11!
One big way to draw closer to Christ in this holy season of Advent is through the popular “O Come, Let Us Adore Him” evening of adoration on Friday, December 11. Witness our sanctuary transformed as we adore Jesus in the Eucharist in candlelight and with beautiful music!
How to Fix a Good Problem?
Especially if you’ve been to our noon Mass, you know how many young families have begun coming to Mass again! For five straight Sundays, we’ve had well over 30 children going to the Children’s Liturgy of the Word! Under the direction of Todd Gale, our religious education classes have grown tremendously since last year!
So what’s the problem? Our cry room is way too small, cramped, and uncomfortable. For our young families to continue wanting to come to Mass, we have to make our church a welcoming environment and have a place for them to go when their children begin to make a fuss. This would also help those trying to focus on hearing the Mass. Using the main entrance vestibule is not workable since our air and heating system requires that the side doors be open, so you can still hear crying children clearly. Particularly as the weather gets colder, our young parents will not have the outside to resort to when it gets really bad.
The idea of expanding the size of our cry room actually ties into the idea of a “Heritage Hall” that connects our church with our parish community center. This would not only fix the above problem, but would address another major problem: access to our church for our elderly and handicapped. Due to the limited handicap spaces right next to the church, this is a repeated complaint, and it has resulted in our own parishioners going to other churches for Mass. Thus, our Building & Grounds Committee has been looking into this “Heritage Hall” idea, and it was discussed in our Finance Council for the first time this month. We will have a couple of architects submit ideas for what may be possible.
Peace of Christ,
Fr. Chas