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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This week, St. Maria Goretti Parish opens the doors of our
Parish’s Catholic school for the twelfth time. It is with much joy,
hope, and anticipation that we welcome our children, our youth, our
faculty, and our staff, back for another school year. Many things
have changed in twelve years. Our school is much bigger. Our staff
is much bigger. Even our building is now three times the size that
it originally was back in the fall of 1996. And everything and
everybody is a little older and, hopefully, wiser than they were
“back in the day”. And yet the primary reason for our School
remains the same: it is Jesus Christ and continuing His teachings
in His Catholic Church. From the very beginning of our Parish
family, we made a commitment to all Catholic education, especially
to its most extreme version, of having a Catholic school as one of
our primary apostolates. Catholic schools are expensive. Catholic
schools face challenges every day that other schools never have to
even think about. Catholic schools take many sacrifices on
everybody’s part, just to survive. And yet, what we as a Church
have been able to accomplish in the Catholic schools in this
country, has been nothing short of miraculous! Because we are
smaller, and have less resources available to us, and because we
wanted to be able to teach about Jesus Christ and His way of life,
we have always had to work harder. And it has paid off handsomely
for us as Church! Our test scores are higher. Our students are
learning their Faith. And they develop a spirit of service that
will enable them to do great things for God in this world, after
they get out of school, and, hopefully, for the rest of their
lives. This opening of the school year for us as a Parish family is
something that ought to make all of us proud, whether we have
children in the school or not. We have a great Catholic school.
And our school raises the bar and demands that our Parish also have
a great P.R.E. – or Parish Religious Education – program. We
congratulate everybody this week as school opens for another year!
And we pray for our teachers, our students, our Principal, our
parents, and our entire staff who all work so hard to make the
school the success that it is, as they begin this new school year.
The Opening Mass for the new school year will be Tuesday morning, at
8:00 AM. Please keep everybody in your prayers!
Tomorrow night, Monday, August 13th,
is another important night around here. Tomorrow is the first
meeting of the RCIA Pre-Catechumenate, which is the very beginning
of the RCIA, for those who wish to be Baptized or to become
full-members of the Catholic Church. We invite everyone and anyone
is not already Catholic to prayerfully consider joining this year’s
process. I’ve said it before many times, and I’ll say it again, St.
Maria Goretti does a really excellent job with RCIA. In my opinion,
it is one of the things that our Parish does best. If I had a
friend or family member who was thinking about RCIA, I would most
definitely want them to do it here at St. Maria Goretti! Who could
you invite? Maybe you yourself would like to do RCIA just to brush
up on your own Faith knowledge. Anyone and everyone can come and
join us on Monday nights. Some of the best discussions that I have
all week long usually take place on Monday nights. And we are also
still looking for sponsors for this year’s class. Tomorrow night
is a BIG night for St. Maria Goretti. The first session starts at
7:00 PM Catholic Standard Time in the Parish Narthex, which is that
big gathering area just down the hall from my office. Maybe YOU
should be there tomorrow night.
This Wednesday, August 15th,
is a Holy Day of Obligation. It is the Feast of the Assumption of
Mary. Masses for the Holy Day are Tuesday evening’s Vigil Mass at
5:30 PM and on Wednesday at both 8:00 AM with the school community
and again at 5:30 PM in the Main Sanctuary. Don’t forget. All of
the Holy Days of Obligation are treated like Sundays in the Catholic
Church.
Next Monday and Tuesday, August 20th
& 21st,
St. Maria Goretti is set to welcome Mr. Jesse Manibusan to our
Parish for our Family Fun Mission. This is a big deal. We’re
getting calls from all over with people wanting to come and hear
Jesse. You are not going to want to miss this guy, especially when
he’s right here at YOUR Parish! He’s got a wonderful message for
all of us. Make sure you clear your family’s calendar for next
Monday and Tuesday. You’ll be glad that you did!
Have a great week! Stay cool!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
We like to use duct tape to fix things that break. God chose to use
nails and a cross to fix a broken world.
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