Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

A big THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make this past Friday night’s 2004 Fall Festival a big success. A good time was had by all. It is good to get together and enjoy one another’s company. You’d be surprised to know just how many really good friends you have here, if you’d just get to know them. There are no strangers here. There are only friends that we haven’t met. In the case of St. Maria Goretti Parish, this is really true.

This weekend we are announcing our new Mass schedule for when we move into the new church. The new Mass times will be effective on the weekend of December 11 th and 12 th, 2004. Our Saturday evening Mass in anticipation of the Lord’s Day will stay at 4:30 PM. Our Sunday Morning Lord’s Day Masses will be at 8:00 AM and at 10:00 AM. And our Sunday evening Lord’s Day Mass will remain at 5:00 PM.

The new Sunday morning schedule gives us an early Mass and a late morning Mass, with enough time in between them to guarantee that they won’t be bumping into each other, as our current 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM Masses frequently do. We want to remember that with the size of the new church, the current attendance at all three of our Sunday morning Masses could fit at one Mass. The new Mass schedule also allows for one priest to handle all four Masses at St. Maria Goretti, without getting additional help from other priests. Is this the perfect schedule? No, I’m sure that it is not. I have had more conversations about this in this last six months, and the only thing that I learned for sure is that there is no way to make everybody happy. I really feel that this is about the best that we can do to meet the needs of everybody. Nobody attending St. Maria Goretti on Sunday morning can feel picked on, because everybody is going to have to change. To those who are attending the 7:30 AM Mass: You are our smallest Mass. There were many who just wanted 7:30 AM dropped. It is our hope that you will come and join us a half-an-hour later at 8:00 AM. To those attending the 9:00 AM Mass: You are our largest Mass, but this is certainly connected to the offering of P.R.E. during the 9:00 AM time, because when P.R.E. is not in session, 9:00 AM is not the largest Mass. I’ll get to P.R.E. in a minute. We are hoping that half of you will come an hour earlier to 8:00 AM and that the other half of you will come an hour later at 10:00 AM. If everybody wants to come at 10:00 AM, we will be big enough to handle it. If everybody wants to come at 8:00 AM, we’ll be big enough to handle that also. And to those attending the Sunday 10:30 AM Mass: This has been our “late” morning Mass. I know many other parishes have much later Masses, but most of them do not have as many baptisms after Mass as what we do. We are now asking that you come a half-an-hour earlier at 10:00 AM. This is our new “late” Mass. If you want still “later”, then please come and join us at 5:00 PM.

I wrote about P.R.E. during Mass time a couple of weeks ago. I shared, at that time, that I was very concerned about people not taking their children to Mass. I also shared that I felt like it was partially OUR responsibility as a Parish family for providing the opportunity for people to do this. To correct this and to give both Mass and religious education the priority that they BOTH deserve, effective December 11 th and 12 th, 2004, St. Maria Goretti Sunday morning P.R.E. will meet at 9:15 AM and will finish up at 10:30 AM. Coffee and donuts will be served after both the 8:00 AM and the 10:00 AM Masses in the Parish Hall. If the new 9:15 AM P.R.E. time will not work for you, I remind you that St. Maria Goretti also offers a second session of P.R.E. on Monday afternoons at 4:00 PM. Perhaps this might be better for your family.

So there you go. I have been amazed in my conversations in the last few months of just how passionate people are about this issue. We tried really hard to find the schedule that would best meet everybody’s needs and fix some of our current difficulties. It will take even more time to get people in and out of our new church. I wanted to let everybody know this now, so that we can start our planning for December. All of our liturgical ministries for Sunday morning will now be divided up between the two Masses. The coordinator for your ministry will be in touch with you to see which Mass you would like to minister at. Thanks to everyone for their patience and consideration as we prepared to make the change

Have a great week!

In Christ,
Fr. Kevin

Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.