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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today we celebrate another special Feast Day, The Feast of
Corpus Christi. Today the entire Church celebrates what an awesome
gift God has given to us as His people, in giving us the Body and
Blood of Jesus Christ, to be our strength in this world. This is a
great Feast Day that is meant to remind us of how important the
Eucharist really is. What better way of celebrating this Feast,
than by going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist today on the Feast
Day!
I am gone this weekend. Be nice to Fr. Dale as he “holds
down the fort” in my absence. I am in Charlotte, North Carolina,
enjoying the trip that the Parish gave me last summer for my 20th
Anniversary of Ordination. I’d like to again thank everyone for the
very nice celebration last summer and the way-too-cool trip that I
am enjoying this weekend. I know that hundreds of you made this
happen. I am very humbled by this very generous act. I am very
much looking forward to the trip, and the race, and the opportunity
to tour several racing shops, including Penske South’s NASCAR shop,
the home base of Ryan Newman. I’ve been practicing for months now
to have my picture taken with Ryan Newman. We’ll see if the
opportunity arises in North Carolina or not. I sincerely hope that
you and your family have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend also.
I’ve always loved this weekend. It’s kinda like the green flag for
summertime. It’s time to get outside. It’s time to drink a glass
of ice-cold, lemonade. It’s time to grill out. It’s time to enjoy
this extraordinary gift that God has given us called life.
This weekend, at all the parishes of our Diocese, including
here at St. Maria Goretti, we are commissioning our Extraordinary
Ministers of Holy Communion. We are so blessed that so many of our
brothers and sisters have stepped forward to help minister the Holy
Eucharist at Mass. And at a church and a Parish the size of St.
Maria Goretti, it takes a whole lot of folks to help out with
Communion and to take Holy Communion to the sick. Thank God that so
many of our number are willing to step up and help out. My thanks
go to each of you this weekend and every weekend that you help out!
I’d also like to thank and to acknowledge the wonderful efforts of
Kathy Lengerich, who heads up our Extraordinary Ministers of Holy
Communion program and who single-handedly trains and provides
formation for all of those who want to serve in this ministry.
Kathy, you are the best! Thank You from all of us!
This coming Wednesday, May 28th,
for the 9th
time, St. Maria Goretti Catholic School will celebrate the
graduation of its eighth grade class. We are very proud of all of
our eighth graders. They are a group of fine, young men and women,
that I know are going to do incredible things out there, when they
hit all of our local high schools. We pray for all of our eighth
graders as they move on to the next phase of their lives. And we
congratulate them on a job well done. The Graduation Mass will take
place Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM. Please note that because of the
Graduation Mass, there will NOT be a regular Wednesday evening 5:30
PM Mass. Instead, we are inviting all of our regular daily Mass
folks to come and join us at 7:00 PM. We do congratulate and pray
for all of our graduates this year: those graduating from other
eighth grade programs, all of our high school graduates, and even
all of those graduating from colleges and universities across the
country. We are very proud of all of you and wish the best in all
of your future endeavors!
Our school does get out this Friday for summer break. Our
students have a half-a day on Friday. And so the Closing Mass of
the school year will be Friday morning at 8:00 AM. Beginning on
Tuesday, June 3rd,
the 8:00 AM Mass shifts to 5:30 PM every Tuesday during the summer.
The Friday 8:00 AM Mass will stay at 8:00 AM during the summer. All
summer daily Masses will take place in the Blessed Sacrament
Chapel. Please be aware of this.
Then Friday evening, the Holy Name Society, the St. Philip
Neri Oratorio, and the Silver Angels are all hosting our annual
End-of-the-School-Year Bash, at 6:30 PM in the Parish Hall. The
Holy Name Society is supplying the grilled meat. Please bring a
covered dish to share and come and join us on Friday evening as we
kick-off the summer “St. Maria Goretti style”. More information and
directions on who’s supposed to bring what, are included inside this
bulletin. It’s a fun evening. Every year “The Bash” gets a little
bigger.
Have a great week! I’ll see you next weekend.
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish
and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
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