St. Maria Goretti - Pastor's Note

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Happy October! We come together today on this the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. I hope and pray that everything is going well for you and your family! Today at our 10:00 AM Mass we are celebrating the Rite of Election to the Catechumenate. Our brothers and sisters who will be going through the RCIA process begin this next phase of their journey towards the Catholic Faith today. We pray for them, for their families, and for everyone involved with our RCIA and RCIC formation processes. This is another great class and I am really looking forward to all of us getting to know them better.

October is the month of the Rosary. Perhaps this is a good time for all of us to think about the place of the Rosary in our prayer lives. The Rosary meant so much to so many of the saints. Popes, martyrs, the Church Fathers, the founders of the religious orders, and so many Catholics down through the ages have prayed the Rosary as an important part of their prayer and spiritual life. How about you? When’s the last time that you prayed the Rosary? While it is true that it is an ancient prayer, it is also true that the Rosary has more significance and importance today than ever! And today, more people of more generations are praying the Rosary, as a way of letting Mary lead us closer to Jesus.

The Rosary is definitely something that we can grow and mature with when we pray it. Many of us can remember “reciting” the Rosary back in Catholic school, or in the car when we were on trips with our families, or praying the Rosary at the wake service for deceased family and friends. And these are all good times to pray the Rosary. But if your thinking that that’s all that the Rosary is about, then you haven’t prayed the Rosary lately, and you haven’t given it a new chance in your life. There is no better prayer to calm you down and give you peace than the Rosary. I know lots of Catholics who haven’t prayed the Rosary in years, and then one day, out of the blue, they pick one up and pray on it, and they are hooked for life. The Rosary has a unique ability to connect us to both Mary and Jesus. It is a great prayer to pray with others.

The Rosary has a particular ability to help families and marriages. May I suggest that your family consider praying the Rosary every day this October for our Lady. What’s it going to take? Maybe fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five minutes? We can certainly turn off the TV, the computer, and the I-pod for that amount of time and pray together as a family. I’d bet that if you tried it as a family for the month of October, that it would be something that you will want to continue come Nov. 1st. I’d bet you a Rosary! The Rosary is also the perfect prayer for married couple to pray together. You can be furious at each other for whatever, and yet you can still sit down and pray a Rosary together, and I promise that you will feel better towards each other by the time that you finish the Rosary. Mary has saved many marriages. The power of this prayer/devotion, the Rosary is truly remarkable. This is the month for us to give the Rosary a try again in our lives.

Did you know that every Saturday morning following our 8:00 AM Saturday daily Mass, that we pray the Rosary together in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel? Want to have a completely awesome Saturday morning? Come to Saturday morning Mass at 8:00 AM, pray the Rosary with us after Mass in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and you can even hit Confession after the Rosary! Talk about a perfect start to a weekend! If everybody knew how powerful this was, we’d have to have Saturday morning Mass in the main sanctuary, because there’d be so many people there. Don’t let the secret out. You didn’t hear this from me!

Speaking of the Rosary, our awesome Altar Rosary Society is planning their fall kick-off for Tuesday, October 28th at 7:00 PM. The Altar Rosary Society is the Women’s Club for St. Maria Goretti. Every registered, adult woman is also a registered member of the Altar Rosary Society. We are asking ALL of the women of the Parish to put this date down on their calendars and to do their best to attend. It is my understanding that they are going to have some awesome soups there that night. I heard that the soup is going to be SO good that I might even need to find a wig and a dress to crash the first meeting! You never know. I do love a good soup!

Have a great week! Let us take care of each other as we strive to make Jesus’ Kingdom more and more of a reality!