Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Tomorrow, for the ninth time, St. Maria Goretti Catholic School will open its doors for another school year. I don’t think that there is anybody more excited about that fact than me. Certainly the over four hundred students are not looking forward to the end of their summer vacation. And I now have the sneaky suspicion that at least a few of the teachers would also like to have a couple of more weeks off. But as for me, I am so exited to have the students back in these halls. It gets way too quiet around here in the summertime. The life and the energy that the students bring to these halls infect all of us here, including this priest. Let us pray for a wonderful school year for everybody.

Our school is once again under the leadership of the amazing Rebecca Neidlinger. As principal, she has brought enthusiastic faith, professionalism, fairness, and a standard of quality to our school that have now become our trademarks. I am so proud of all that she has done for all of us. Miss Neidlinger has assembled the best faculty available to serve our needs. We are so blessed to have each of these people on our team to educate our children.

One thing that many of us are painfully aware of, as we begin another school year, is that St. Maria Goretti does have waiting lists for almost every grade. Our goal always has been to get every child from the Parish, whose parents wanted them to have a Catholic education, into our school. Our growing numbers makes that more difficult by the day. We do look forward to the opening of the third section of each grade level, after we have completed our obligation to our new church building. All I can say is that for now we are doing our best to meet everybody’s needs. If your family is on the waiting list, I very much share your concerns. We’ll keep working hard to make the additional sections happen. Pray for this, too.

This weekend we are saying “goodbye” to our summer Deacon, Deacon Weldon. There are receptions planned for today after the 7:30 AM, the 9:00 AM, and the 10:30:AM Masses. Please stop by and wish Deacon Weldon well. Deacon Weldon goes back to school in St. Louis, MO, this week. All of us will miss him, especially Fr. Dale and myself. It has been a really great summer and it was our honor to have Deacon Weldon with us. However, if we don’t send him back to school, then he won’t get ordained a priest next June. So get back there, Deacon Weldon! We need priests like you! Thank for all that you did for us this summer. May God bless your final school year! Please know that you are always welcome back here and we hope that you will join us for the dedication of our new church on December 8 th. May you go with our prayers and our love!

As we get closer and closer to December 8 th, I find myself stopping in the Adoration Chapel more and more during the week. I’ve noticed that several times now during the week, we are missing people. This can’t happen. We all really need to make a commitment to being there for our hour with Jesus. If you are signed up, please do your best to be there each week. If you can’t be there, then please take responsibility for finding a substitute to stay with Jesus for you. If you do not have an hour, what are you waiting for? We need you! Please call Pete and Lisa Munson and get your own hour as soon as possible. The Eucharist cannot be left alone. If we ever hope to get to Perpetual Adoration, and that has been our goal all along, then we’re going to need a lot more people stepping up to take an hour with our Lord. Please consider doing this. I promise you that it will be one of the best hours of your entire week. There is no better place to receive Jesus’ healing, peace, and calming Spirit than in front of the Blessed Sacrament!

Before we move into our new, big church; before we take pride in the quality of our programs and our ministries; before we talk about how much this community enjoys being together; WE NEED TO BE PEOPLE OF PRAYER! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: that’s the best thing that we can do for this Parish family. We can give it a strong prayer foundation. If we do that, everything else will follow and will fall into place. Don’t just talk about it. Do it!

In Christ’s love,
Fr. Kevin

The best mathematical equation ever :
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given