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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I just got back into my office from a little walk that took
me through the Parish Hall, and I was amazed that Monsignor Duncan
Hall STILL smelled of garlic and tomato sauce! The 2008 Italian
Festival is now in the history books. It was a very different
Italian Festival this year with the rain last Saturday. We are so
blessed to have the large Parish Hall and the Stuart-Gadus
Fieldhouse, and to be able to move so many of the events inside.
I’d like to offer my thanks to EVERYONE who pulled this Italian
Festival off. We had more volunteers than we have ever had before,
doing more work and running more activities and booths, than we have
ever had before. Ben and Kristan Russell and Greg and Kim Stanley
did an outstanding job of leading this year’s event. Things were so
well organized and planned out, that even having to move everything
indoors at the last minute, was well planned and thought out.
Thanks also go to all of our Committee Chairs and the dozens of
people who pitched in and weren’t even signed up to help out.
Despite the rain, it was still a wonderful time and a great
opportunity for us to celebrate our Patroness with our local
community!
As I wrote about a couple weeks ago, one of the biggest
goals of our Italian Festival is Evangelization and outreach to
others. The Gospels remind all of us that one of our most important
jobs as followers of Jesus Christ, is to be bringing His Good News
and love to ALL that we come in contact with. Evangelization is
NOT just for Missionaries, or priests, or people that work for the
Church. Evangelization is something that we all have to be doing
every single day! It’s not a committee’s job. It’s not the
Diocese’s job. It’s not the Parish Council’s job. It is OUR job.
We all have a special responsibility to be bringing others to
Jesus.
In the next few weeks, that job becomes even more important
as we prepare to kick-off another year’s Rite of Christian
Initiation for Adults, or R.C.I.A. R.C.I.A. kicks off on Monday
evening, August 11th,
at 7:00 PM in the Parish Narthex. The Parish Narthex is the
gathering area just down the hall past the Parish Offices. That
date is not that far away. It is right around the corner! NOW is
the time for all of us to be praying and thinking about who we could
invite to consider the joining the Church this year. There are
plenty of people out there who need to be Baptized, or who need to
convert to Catholicism, or adults who need to be Confirmed as adults
members of the Catholic Church. Many of them are just waiting for
someone to ask them to consider it. Couldn’t you be God’s
messenger? The time is now to start inviting and to start having
conversations about RCIA. Who could you invite?
Under the direction of Jeanne Derksen, and assisted by Joan
Scimeca and Dan Dessauer, St. Maria Goretti’s RCIA curriculum is one
of the very best around. We are very proud of what is accomplished
on Monday nights at RCIA here at our Parish. I can promise you,
that if you invite your spouse, your relative, your friend, your
neighbor, your co-worker to consider joining the Church through the
RCIA process here at St. Maria Goretti, and they accept that
invitation, that they will be getting the very best that we have to
offer. We won’t let you down. We won’t embarrass you. Now is the
time for us to be inviting and planting seeds that may or may not
come to fruition next Easter. Ours is not to make that
determination. Ours is to be out there making the invitation. May
each of us start praying this week about who we might invite to
consider joining the Church this year. We are the recruiters for
the Lord!
We do pray today for and with our youth gathered in
Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI. I
believe that St. Maria Goretti has three of our own in Sydney
today. I’m sure that they are having a wonderful experience in “the
land downunder”.
Thanks to all of those who brought boxes of tissues for
the Little Sisters of the Poor and St. Augustine’s Home last
weekend. The E-Mail notification service worked well and was
forwarded on by many of you. Your kindness was most appreciated.
We will continue to collect boxes in the next few weeks and will
make sure that all of them get down to St. Augustine’s.
Have a great week! Let us keep each other in our
prayers!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.
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