Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Welcome to the Fifth Sunday of Lent! It is so hard for me to believe that next Sunday is Palm Sunday. This has been a very quick Lent. I must not have given up enough. This coming week our Parish school here at St. Maria Goretti will be closed for Spring Break. Please note that our daily Masses on Tuesday and Friday this week will be held in the evening at 5:30 PM. It will probably be a little quieter than usual around here this weekend. Next week, our local public schools will be going on Spring Break. The Spring Breaks do not coincide this year on purpose, because we didn’t want to be on Spring Break during Holy Week, which begins next Sunday.

The construction of our new church is coming along quite well. The good weather of the last several weeks has allowed our builders to catch up on time lost last winter due to the wet weather. They put up a little more steel and pour a little more concrete every day. It has really been a lot of fun to watch the outline of the new building coming together. This new church is going to be breathtaking! The construction reminds us all of how important our pledges are to the “On This Rock We Build Our Church” campaign. Lots of people are making lots of sacrifices. Our generosity has been amazing. God is making this happen through us! Let us pray for each other as we continue to make the necessary sacrifices. There are lots of other things that we could all do with our money today. We make sacrifices so that this beautiful church can be built up to honor our Lord, Jesus the Christ. Working together, with God and with one another, we can make this happen. It is awesome to watch!

I do want to take a minute to thank all of the awesome folks who have brought food for our recent funeral dinners. And I would like to especially thank Tracey Martin and Kay Smith for heading up this important apostolate. I strongly believe that one of the kindest gestures that we can offer to brothers and sisters who have lost a loved one, is to provide a nice meal for them following the funeral, and a safe, comfortable place to come and be together. Thanks to the efforts of Tracey and Kay and their entire committee, St. Maria Goretti is able to offer this wonderful gesture to our families in their time of need. We have been remarkably blessed to not have too many funerals in our recent past. But in the last couple of months, that seems to be changing. In fact, I think that we have already had more funerals in 2004 than we did in all of 2003. As we continue to grow and as we have more funerals, more people than ever are going to be needed to help with these dinners. If you or your family would be interested in helping out with this important ministry, please contact Tracey or Kay to let them know that you would be willing to help out. The more people willing to help, the less often everybody is going to be called on to help cook or to help serve. Tracey and Kay’s phone numbers are listed on the contact page inside this bulletin.

I would like to ask a favor of the parents of our Parish Religious Education, P.R.E., students and of those parents who are currently using our nursery. We are asking that you please go to meet your children at the room where they are in class or at the nursery when it is time to pick them up. This has become somewhat of a problem on Sunday mornings especially, where it has become so crowded and chaotic, that we need to guarantee that the right child gets to the right parent.

There are lots of people around and it has become easier than ever for our little ones to get lost in the shuffle. Both the P.R.E. teachers and the nursery Co-op volunteers have been instructed to keep the children in the room until one of the parents comes to retrieve them. This has become a matter of safety and security for the children. Please help us to work together to keep everybody safe.

If you are going to be traveling this week or next, please have a safe journey. Our prayers go with you and we will look forward to seeing you when you get back. Again, a reminder that when you are gone, St. Maria Goretti is still in need of your continued support. The Parish’s bills do not stop when you go on Spring Break, so we are hoping that all of us will remember to send in our weekly envelope, even when we are traveling. Thank you for helping us to keep St. Maria Goretti financially secure and stable.

Have a great week! We’ll see you next weekend for Palm Sunday. Let us pray for one another!

In Christ,
Fr. Kevin

Like perfume, success is to be sniffed, not taken internally.