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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. We
remember the Faith, the Hope, and the Love that Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph shared together in that household at Nazareth. And we pray
for that same Faith, Hope, and Love for all of our families, our
communities, and in a special way, for our Parish family. Today is
also Fr. Dale’s birthday. Say an extra prayer for him today!
If you are attending our Saturday evening Mass on December
29th,
we welcome Bishop Higi back to St. Maria Goretti for the celebration
of the Ministries of Lector and Acolyte. We also welcome Fr. Brian
Doerr, Director of Vocation for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana,
all of the seminarians of our Diocese, and many of their families
and friends who join us for this Mass. As seminarians progress
through their graduate work in theology, they receive “ministries”
in stages, that enables them to serve as ordinary ministers in
specific ministries of the Church. In our Diocese, our first-year
theologians are admitted to the Ministry of Lector. And our
second-year theologians are admitted to the Ministry of Acolyte.
Here this weekend, five young men of our Diocese are being installed
in the Ministry of Lector. This includes St. Maria Goretti’s own
seminarian, Josh Bennett. In addition to Josh, Matthew Arbuckle,
David Huemmer, Sean Pogue, and Anthony Rowland are also being
installed as Lectors. Two young men of the Diocese, Andrew
DeKeyser, who you will remember from the time he spent with us last
summer, and Mark Walter are being installed as Acolytes. We
congratulate all of these individuals, their families and friends,
and our whole Diocese. We are truly blessed as a Diocese with
several holy and dedicated young men who are discerning priesthood
for our Local Church. Saturday night will be a big night for us
all. It is St. Maria Goretti’s privilege to host this event this
year. Again, we welcome all of our visitors for this event!
A reception for our “official” lector, Josh Bennett will
be held today, on Sunday morning, following the 10:00 AM Mass in the
Parish Hall. All are invited to come over after Mass and
congratulate Josh on his new ministry.
Between our 8:00 AM Mass and our 10:00 AM Mass this
morning, we will be blessing our new statue of the Holy Family.
This Feast Day today provides us with the perfect opportunity to
bless and unveil the new statue. The new statue, which was
purchased by our own Altar Rosary Society recently, will be on
permanent display in the Holy Spirit Chapel. I’d like to thank all
of the ladies of the Altar Rosary Society who have worked tirelessly
now for a couple of years, to raise the money to purchase this
beautiful new statue. We invite everyone to join us for the
blessing of the new statue at 9:30 AM today in the Holy Spirit
Chapel.
We have received word from the Diocese, that Fr. Joshua
Janko is being transferred from St. Maria Goretti effective Tuesday,
January 15th.
Despite the increase in the number of seminarians for our Diocese,
we are once again reminded just how desperately we need good priests
today. We must all continue to pray for more vocations to encourage
our best young men to consider serving God in His Church as
priests. Fr. Joshua has served here at St. Maria Goretti since his
ordination to the priesthood in June of 2006. We will obviously
miss him very much. Our daily Mass schedule and our Reconciliation
schedule will change back to what it was before we had an Associate
Pastor, effective January 15th.
I’ll write more about that next weekend. On Sunday, January 13th,
we will host two breakfast receptions for Fr. Joshua, following the
8:00 AM and the 10:00 AM Masses, in the Parish Hall, to give all of
us a chance to say ‘thank you’ and to wish him well in his new
assignment. I hope that you can join us on January 13th.
Please mark that date on your calendars.
This Tuesday, January 1st,
is the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. It is a Holy Day of
Obligation. Masses for the Holy Day here at St. Maria Goretti are
Monday evening at 5:30 PM and Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM. I have
always loved the fact that the Church starts out the new calendar
year with a Holy Day and with all of us coming to Mass. If there’s
ever a great time to pray together at Mass, it’s as we begin another
new year. May we together make 2008 truly a Year of our Lord!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Sunday clears
away the rust of the week.
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