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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Welcome to the 2006 St. Maria Goretti Italian Festival
this weekend! We especially welcome all of our guests who join
us as our Parish family celebrates the Feast of our Patroness.
St. Maria Goretti is such a tremendous example for all of us of
Faith, forgiveness, and purity. This weekend we ask her to pray
for each and every one of us, that every day, we would become
more and more like her.
I’d like to offer a BIG St. Maria Goretti “thank you” to
Ted and Carol Wells and Nora and Joe Bentivoglio for co-chairing
this year’s Festival. You did an outstanding job! I’d also
like to thank the hundreds of volunteers who stepped forward to
serve and help out and make this year’s Festival a great
success. Nothing unites a Parish quite like working AND praying
together for a common cause. Thank you to everyone who helped
out and who came out to support this Festival celebrating our
Faith!
You may have noticed last weekend at the celebration
welcoming Fr. Joshua, and again this past Thursday evening at
the Mass for the Feast of St. Maria Goretti, and again at the
4:30 PM Mass beginning the Festival this weekend, that St. Maria
Goretti has a new cadre of older servers who are going to be
helping out at our special Masses. This new group of high
school age young men, has been specially formed by our own
seminarian, Josh Bennett, and Deacon Steve Miller, for advanced
ministry at the Altar of the Lord. The new group will be called
the Templar Knights of the Holy Eucharist, for the love and
devotion that they will show to the Mass. Any high school age
young man can become a Knight, if they are willing to go through
the training and accept the required commitments. I am very
proud to say that twelve young men from our Parish have already
accepted the challenge and have been preparing for the last
several weeks to become Knights. The Knights will be
distinguished when they serve by the wearing of the cassock and
surplus, differentiating them from our younger servers and the
white albs that they wear. We welcome this new group and
ministry and we look forward to all of the good that these young
men are going to do.
We also hope to use the new Templar Knights of the Holy
Eucharist to promote vocations to the priesthood. There are
very few strong common denominators among young men who become
priests. The statistics show that many of them did attend
Catholic schools, but not all. Many of them were Boy Scouts,
but again, not most. Studies show that 85% of the young men who
go on to be priests were Altar Servers as boys when they were
growing up. Clearly, one of the best recruiting avenues that we
have for the Catholic priesthood, is with our servers at Mass.
I think that if a young man can learn to feel comfortable
helping out at Mass and assisting the priest in front of all
those people at Mass, then it makes the idea of doing it as a
priest that much more of a reality. We welcome the new Knights
for many reasons. Our Parish needs you guys!
I’d like to also thank Jeff and Deb Riley, Dave Althoff
and the Holy Name Society, and the many volunteers who worked so
hard to pull off last weekend’s welcome reception for Fr.
Joshua. I know that it was a tough weekend for many people
schedules, but I am most grateful to all who helped out and to
all who attended the First Mass and reception. Thank you!
We pray for our high school students who will be
leaving today for a week of service at the Catholic Heart Work
Camp and for the adults who will be accompanying them. I am so
proud that these young people would give up a week of their
summer vacations to go and serve those in need. Our youth
remind all of us that we are to be servants of the Lord and that
we have a special obligation to help take care of the poor. We
pray for a safe trip and a wonderful week.
That’s about everything for now. Have a great week!
May you bear witness to Christ by all that you say and by all
that you do!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Sunday clears
away the rust of the week.
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