St. Maria Goretti

We are so extraordinarily blessed. I’m saying that a lot lately. It’s just that you look around, you see other people’s situations, both past and present, and you realize just how good we have it. Two years ago this month, we were preparing to move into our new church. Now, were in it, and we get to enjoy every Sunday, being able to worship God at Mass in this beautiful Sanctuary. I love praying here. It just feels right. And in just nine short years after we moved out to this former soybean field, we had our new church.

We know, that for many others, things didn’t happen that quick. For example in France, the Cathedral of Notre Dame took over 180 years to build. The first couple of generations who gave the money to build it, were long dead by the time that they got the building done. That wouldn’t have been much fun. And lest you think that building churches was just a problem for the French, in Germany, the beautiful Cathedral at Cologne took 632 years to complete. So many people had looked forward for so long to its completion, that the day of its dedication was a national holiday in Germany. The German engineers really wanted to get it right. In Italy, the Cathedral of Siena, where several of us have visited before, was begun in the Twelfth Century, back in the 1100’s, and the Cathedral of Siena is STILL not finished today, almost 900 years later. The Italians are never in a hurry to get things done. In England, construction on Bolton Abbey was begun in the early 1500’s. This was not a good time to start building a Catholic church in England. In 1536, King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, and construction on Bolton Abbey came to an abrupt halt. It also has never been completed. And just so we don’t leave the Spanish out… the Basilica of the Holy Family, in Spanish they call it La Sagrada Familia, was begun in the 1880’s in Barcelona, Spain. It also is still unfinished, although work is progressing nicely. The Basilica is slated to be dedicated in 2026. Even under construction, it is still one of Spain’s biggest tourist attractions. Would you like to go to Spain in 2026 for the dedication of the Basilica?

Do you see what I’m trying to say? We are so blessed. We didn’t have to wait for hundreds of years to get to dedicate our new church. Thanks to some great planning, a lot of sacrificing on many people’s part, and some creative financing, we’re in our new church. However, it would be wrong for us to think that the job is over and that we are done. We’re not. We still have to pay down the loans for this magnificent building. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about today.

In the next several weeks, along with the rest of our Diocese, we are going to be doing Fruitful Harvest 2006. Yes, it’s that time again. We don’t have any choice with Fruitful Harvest. As part of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, we must do this bi-annual campaign to pay our fair potion of what it costs to run our Diocese. Once again this time around, St. Maria Goretti is going to do what is called a “dove-tail campaign” with Fruitful Harvest. This means that at the same time that we are raising money to meet our Diocesan goal, we’re also going to be raising money for our Parish, specifically this time around, to help pay down our debt on the new church. There is a great advantage to all of us in doing this. We don’t have to run another campaign, again, asking for more money. And, by doing our campaign in conjunction with Fruitful Harvest, we get the Diocese to pay for all of our tracking, and bookkeeping, and reminders, and updates. This saves the Parish, us, lots and lots of money, manpower, and time. As a Parish family, St. Maria Goretti has never had a stand-alone Fruitful Harvest campaign. We’ve always used these Diocesan campaigns to build our Parish. We’re going to do this again. It’s probably not the last time, we’re going to do this.

So what’s this campaign for? Well, this time, it’s simple. For the first time really, St. Maria Goretti Parish is in debt. We’ve got an awesome new church. But just like some of the churches that I mentioned before, we are not done here yet. We’ve still got to finish paying for this new building. And until we do, our Parish is held back. The debt from the building of the church is like a weight on our back. We are a young, active, and Spirit-filled Parish, that is being weighted down by what we owe. We must get rid of this debt as soon as possible. There are so many other great things that we want to do and great things coming soon for all of us, that can’t happen, until we retire the debt. So that’s what this campaign is all about. It is a two-year campaign running from January 2007 until December 2008. And this campaign is absolutely essential to our future as a Parish.

As in the past, we’re going to do this together. We don’t need one family to win the lottery and to give us millions of dollars. What we really need is every single one of our families to make a pledge to give what they can give towards this campaign, to pay down our debt. St. Maria Goretti Parish has never been about the one or two big gifts. This Parish belongs to ALL of us. We all need to do our part. We all need to make sacrifices. We all need to have ownership in our Parish home. And isn’t that why we are ALL so proud of this building. A few people didn’t build this magnificent church. All of us did. Many of us have already given a lot. Four years ago, almost eight hundred families, really made sacrifices so that this new church could be built. I thank each and every one of you for ALL that you did. But the job isn’t finished. And that’s deceptive now, because we have a nice building. The new church looks like it is done. But until we pay for it, our work is not done.

And so this weekend, we begin our new campaign. This time around there’s no big dinner, or souvenir gifts, or videos or movies. Quite honestly, we can’t afford to spend the money on nice things like that. We’ve got to reduce our debt and we’ve got to reduce it in the next two years. This is a quick and hard-hitting campaign meant to make us healthy again. We’re going to need everybody’s help.

So what can you do? I’ve got some ideas…

1. First of all, pray! We need to ALL be praying every day for the success of this campaign. This has got to be God’s work, first and foremost, and the best way for that to happen is for all of us to pray. There is a specific campaign prayer in your hymnals. We’ll be praying that together after Communion from now, until the end of the campaign next month. But pray at home, pray as a family, pray in the Adoration chapel. Working with God, we can make this happen.

2. Secondly, next weekend, after all of our Masses, I need you, or at least someone from your family, to come to an informational meeting in the gym to hear more about this campaign and your involvement in it. These meetings are extremely important. For this campaign to work, we ALL have to know what is going on, and what the plan is. You need to be in the know. We want you to be fully informed and aware of what’s going on here. The only way for that to happen is we need you to come to the informational meetings next weekend. We need to all be on the same page. And if everybody will make a commitment to coming over, maybe, maybe, we’ll have shorter homilies next weekend.

3. Thirdly, it’s time once again for all of us to seriously think and pray about what we can do, to help pay down the debt with this campaign. In the next few weeks, all of us are going to have to fill out a pledge card, myself included. This is an act of Faith. Our pledge speaks volumes about what we believe and what is important to us. Now is the time to think and pray about this.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here for ten years or ten days. This Parish belongs to all of us. We all have a responsibility to help keep it strong and vibrant. I need your help. Let’s work together to make this happen. Let’s get this done.

May God bless us this day, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti… Pray for us !!!