Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings! And if you are visiting our Parish for our annual Italian Festival, we welcome you to St. Maria Goretti and to Westfield! Each year we celebrate our Patroness’ Feast Day (which is July 6 th) with a special celebration that is for the whole family. We are all certainly very glad that you are here with us this weekend.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Steve and Jeanne Spaletto who chaired this year’s Festival, and also their co-chairs Kyle and Twyla Arnold. The leadership of the four of you really brought this year’s Festival together and has made it the success that it is. From all of us here at St. Maria Goretti, thanks for your commitment and all your hard work. Thanks also to the almost four hundred volunteers who have signed up to work this year’s Festival. It is our biggest number of volunteers yet. Quite clearly, it takes an army of caring people to pull off something like this for this many people. I am extremely grateful to each and every one of you who gave of your time and talents to help out. Again, this year’s Festival would not have been a success without you!

Of course, everything this weekend, the great food, the decorations, the games, the music, all the hard work - all of it was done to honor and to tell the story of our patroness, St. Maria Goretti. We are so incredibly blessed to have this relatively new saint as our patroness, and to have a saint who is so young. There’s not a day that goes by that St. Maria Goretti is not in Heaven praying for all of us here at this Parish that is dedicated to her honor. The loving and faith-filled example of this young saint has to inspire all of us no matter what our age or gender. It is with great joy this weekend that we give thanks to God for our Patroness and that we ask God to help us to be like her. If only we could love Jesus as much as she did, can you imagine how different our world would be? Can you imagine how different we would be?

Last weekend, our Parish business manager, Steve Hood, wrote an excellent letter in this space, concerning the end of the fiscal year and the beginning of our new fiscal year. Starting July 1 st, our new budget went into effect. As you can see, this year we are going to need a little bit more to be able to pay our bills. I know that, as always, working together we will be able to meet these new numbers each week. But for that to happen, we are going to need the help of everyone. I would especially like to appeal this week to all of those who are registered members of our Parish family, who worship with us regularly, but who have never felt any obligation to help our community out, when it comes to paying the bills. Guys, the reality is that for us to achieve our new goals we are going to need everybody doing what they can to help out. If you’ve never contributed before, then it’s time for you to start. Start out small. Use the envelopes that we send to you. Give what you can. God appreciates and can use whatever gift we can give each week. We’ve got to be moving to the point where every single one of us realizes that we need to tithe. Tithing does more for us than we can begin to imagine. For our part, I promise that, as a Parish and as a Parish staff, we will always be good stewards of the money that we give to the Church. One of the great advantages that St. Maria Goretti has enjoyed over its brief history is that we’ve always come in below budget. Our entire staff and administration takes great care in getting the most for each dollar that we spend for our Parish. Leading us in this effort is Steve Hood. Steve has done such an excellent job at administering our finances, our resources, and our personnel. Along with an awesome Finance Council, Steve and crew have once again delivered an excellent budget that is conservative and yet meets all the needs of our growing community. We need to thank Steve as a community. His is a very thank-less job that he does with care, compassion, and faith.

This coming week is our annual Vacation Bible Camp for our youngsters. A great week is planned for those attending these awesome days. Pray for nice weather! Vacation Bible Camp is always so much better when you can get outdoors!

Have a great weekend! Thanks to all of our guests for joining us this weekend. Next year’s Italian Festival is slated for July 9 th, 2005. Mark your calendars so that you can come back and be with us again next year!

In Christ,
Fr. Kevin

The will of God will never take you to where
the Grace of God will not protect you.