Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

       We pray this weekend for the men of our Parish who are making their Christ Renews His Parish weekend.  Each of the Christ Renews His Parish weekends are very important to our entire Parish family.  We pray for the guys this time around, and pray that all of them will open their hearts and their lives to the power of the Holy Spirit!

       If you have been noticing in the bulletin, in the last two months we’ve added quite a number of new families to our Parish family.  We put the new families names in the bulletin each week, so that we can welcome them.  Two weeks ago, we had another of our Welcome Receptions, for our new families, with lots of new brothers and sisters in attendance.  We can all see it at Masses with lots of new faces and new names.  This is an especially important time for ALL OF US to get out of ourselves, and introduce ourselves and our families, to our new brothers and sisters, and to welcome them to our Parish family.  This is not an option.  This is something we must do to really be a community and a Faith family.  I’m calling on all of us, to make the effort to introduce ourselves to people that we are praying with, and that we don’t know who they are.  It could even be, that you’ve prayed next to the same people (Because let’s face, almost all of us sit pretty much in the same place every time we come to Mass!) for several months, or even several years, AND YOU STILL DON’T KNOW THEIR NAMES.  PLEASE, please, please… introduce yourself and get to know them!  We can’t really be a community if we don’t know each other.  And I know this is hard.  And I know how many people hate to do this.  Sometimes, we can all be very private people.  But we desperately need for everyone who walks in our doors to feel welcome and a part of our community and family.  And things in the bulletin, and receptions, and a Welcome Committee are all nice efforts.  But nothing is more important than each one of us, regardless of how long we have been a member here, to introduce ourselves and say ‘hello’ to those we don’t know or haven’t met yet.  There are some really awesome people in this community.  I promise you.  You might just be meeting one of the best friends that you are ever going to have, in that new hand that you shake.  You don’t know!  That’s why all of us must be welcoming to everybody!

        Our witness to each other is extremely important.  This is true not only here at church or in the parking lot, or on the sport’s fields, but it’s also true anywhere we go in the larger community.  People are watching us.  And, for good or bad, people are judging us AND judging our entire community on our behavior, on our attitudes, and on our words.  You would not believe the number of times I have complete strangers tell me of something good that a person wearing a St. Maria Goretti shirt, or driving a car with a St. Maria Goretti license plate, or just someone that they know goes to church here, has done for them!  Many of us are making a difference and giving great witness to Christ.  We’ve got to take that witnessing much more seriously, as a community.  What I hear much less about, but is certainly out there, is how many people wearing a St. Maria Goretti shirt or sporting a St. Maria Goretti license plate DO NOT bear witness to Christ?   The way each one of us lives our life is important.  We must all strive to be authentic Catholic Christians every day.  People are watching.  At work, at school, in our neighborhoods, even at the Post Office, people are watching us and holding us to higher expectations.  And that’s a good thing!  If Jesus Christ is Who we say He is, then we as His followers need to be better and more accountable for our actions and words.  We know better.  We know the way that we are supposed to be living.

         We continue to gear up and get ready for Fruitful Harvest 2008 / “Angels in Action”.  Please be willing to help out with the campaign in any way that you can, when you are asked.  It is going to take an army of people to reach out to 100% of this community.  They are going to ask all of us to make a two-year pledge.  It’s time for all of us to pray about how we can help out this time around.

         I can’t believe that October begins this week.  The weeks are flying by!  Have a great week!  Get out there and enjoy some of this beautiful, Fall weather!  It will be gone way too quickly.

In Christ,

Fr. Kevin 

Charity is the pure gold that makes us rich in eternal wealth.