Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

For the past two weekends, St. Maria Goretti has hosted its Men’s and Women’s Christ Renews His Parish weekends. I continue to give thanks and praise to God for the many good things that He does on these weekends. I am truly in awe of everything that has happened in the last two weeks. God is at work in big ways. I would like to thank each and every person who is involved in Christ Renews His Parish. From the two beautiful Agape services to both outstanding weekends, God is served, our brothers and sisters are witnessed to, and our Parish family is truly renewed. I am so sold on this process! If you are reading this as a member of our Parish family, and you haven’t made a Christ Renews His Parish weekend, I cannot encourage you enough to do it as soon as possible. The next Men’s weekend will be on March 5 th &6 th, 2005. And the next Women’s weekend will be April 16 th &17 th, 2005. Put these dates on your calendars. Make a commitment to going next spring. You will be so glad that you did!

As many of you already know, I am a very firm believer in spiritual warfare. I live my life every day extremely concerned about this Great War that is going on in the world today - and I am not talking about the one in Iraq. I also pray a great deal about that one. But the one that concerns me much more is the one between God and the devil. Let me assure you, that this war is even more dangerous because of its eternal significance. The devil’s favorite weapon in the war is to get us to believe that he and the war don’t exist. If we don’t believe, if we don’t see what’s really happening, then we will fall for all of his lies and tricks. Satan is real. There is real evil in the world. I have seen it! Some of you have also. Now this is nothing for us to be afraid of, because we have Jesus and His Holy Spirit. I’m not trying to scare anyone. We enjoy more power and help against the devil than we could ever imagine. We’ve got God, we’ve got the angels, and we’ve got the saints. We’re on the right team and we know that in the end, we will be victorious. But that doesn’t mean that there are not going to be some fierce battles on the way to that victory. This is the reality of spiritual warfare. The devil will attack with full force our families, our marriages, our egos, our friendships, and our community. We must remain strong! We must stay rooted in Christ and in His way. It is the only way to survive the onslaught.

In just a few weeks, we are going to open a beautiful new church for the praise and glory of God and His way. Because of our hard work and sacrifices, many other souls will come to know Jesus and will join us in building His Kingdom. This is a victory for Heaven. There’s going to be great rejoicing in Heaven over what we have accomplished here on earth. But let’s not be naïve. The devil and the dark world are not going to be pleased. They know how much damage our new church and what is going on here at St. Maria Goretti is going to do to their efforts. In the next few weeks, I am concerned that we are going to be hit with just about everything that hell has to throw at us. We must remain strong! We’ve got to pray more during this time. We must stay pure and holy. We need to ask for the assistance of Mary, the saints, and most especially, the holy angels and archangels. We must stay rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. We must serve, and help out, and care more than ever. This is when faith comes down to bare essentials: JUST WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE? AND HOW MUCH DO YOU BELIEVE IT? So many preparations are being made for December 8 th and our celebrations. Let us not forget that the most important things that we can do to prepare, are the spiritual things. The things of the soul matter most!

I also mention this now because this time of the year is also when our society and culture likes to play around with satanic things and evil. Halloween is coming up. During this time of the year an awful lot of well-intentioned people like to flirt around with things that are best avoided and things that are a lot more dangerous than they know. Let us be very careful about how we buy into this holiday. Why not challenge our kids to dress up as one of the saints, instead of Freddy, or Jason, or even Spiderman? Christians need to take back All Saint’s Day Eve.

This Friday night is our Fall Festival. The entire Parish is invited to come and join in the fun. This weekend also gives us another opportunity to pledge to the second part of “On This Rock…We Build Our Church”. Please stop by after Mass and make your pledge.

In Christ,
Fr. Kevin

Some people can’t tell a lie, others can’t tell the truth,
and others can’t tell the difference.