St. Maria Goretti - Pastor's Note

Happy August! The days of summer are flying by, and with school starting in just two weeks, everyone is trying get all of those last things of summer down and get ready for school. It’s a busy time of the year, that is filled with anticipation and hope. The Back-to-School sales flyers started appearing in the newspaper weeks ago, so you know that we’re getting close.

Hey, it’s time for us to spend a little time talking about our responsibility to take care of our physical plant here at St. Maria Goretti. And in the last couple of weeks, we have had some serious issues, so I thought this week would be a good time to bring them up. We are having a problem with doors left open and lights left on, and things not cleaned up properly and put away as they should be. These days, we have so many different parish groups that are sharing our entire complex, that in order to take care of everybody, it is absolutely essential that each individual, and each group and organization, take responsibility for cleaning up after themselves, turning off the lights, and making sure that the doors are locked. And because we are a community and we are ALL brothers and sisters, when somebody doesn’t do their job, we all have to step-up and help out. Nobody should ever be the last person leaving the building, and then walk away with lights on, with messes left behind, or without securing the building. If you can’t take care of it, please call me or any member of our Parish staff, and we’ll take care of it. But it must be taken care of! This also includes when you’re leaving the building, tugging on the doors to make sure that they latch. Many times, our doors are locked, but when the last person goes through them at night, they fail to latch the door behind them. We’re working on adjusting the closers to pull them more tightly, but the reality is that on almost all of our doors, this can happen. Just a brief tug after you exit is all it takes to make sure that the door is locked and the building is secure.

Also, connected to all of this, is the necessity of keeping an eye on our young children. Just last week, on two different occasions, I ran into some of our youngest members wandering the back halls of St. Maria Goretti by themselves. When I questioned these young individuals, they told me that their parents were at meetings or classes here that evening. We’ve got to do a better job, keeping track of our youngest folks. One fifth of this Parish is a young child. We love kids here at St. Maria Goretti. We want to serve their needs and we want to protect and watch out for them. That is impossible to do when we leave them unattended. We’re not the new little Parish way back in the former soybean field that nobody knows about anymore. St. Maria Goretti is a big, active place with many visitors. We are also a Parish that is quite well-known for our kids, our love of kids, and how many kids we have running around here. And unfortunately, in 2007, that makes us a target and means that we must ALL be extremely vigilant in protecting our children. Please do not leave your children unattended here – not in the buildings, not on the playground area, not on the sport’s fields, not anywhere! Last week, we also unfortunately experienced some vandalism of the two-week old new paint in one of our restrooms. Very clearly, the vandalism was done by a young child. This shouldn’t have happened. Where were that child’s parents when the child was marking up the new paint? Guys, we can be better than this. We need to be better

Finally, even when it comes to cleaning up and picking up trash, we ALL need to help out. We have wonderful folks who serve our community and are paid to help us to keep our church, school, and Parish facilities clean and usable for us all. It’s their job to help us, not to pickup AFTER us. We have such a beautiful church, school, and campus. Each and every one of us should take pride in what we have and keep it as nice as possible. Don’t make a mess. If you do, pick it up or clean it up. If you see something on the floor that shouldn’t be there, pick it up and throw it away. This is our spiritual home and God’s house in Westfield. It should be as clean as possible. We should take care of it as best we can. And that is the responsibility of ALL of us!

We’re in this together. We’ve got to work together to take care of each other and our common property. Let’s see if this school year we can’t all do that better!

In Christ,

Fr. Kevin

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.