From the Pastor:
Growing up on the farm, one of the most unwelcome sounds of God’s creation for my brothers and me were the cicadas. It wasn’t that we disliked the strange, winged creatures, but instead it signaled to us that summer would be ending soon. The freedom of summer provided us kids with many wonderful opportunities and a slower pace of life without school activities. Well, I’ve been hearing the cicadas as I drive from parish to parish, and without looking at the calendar, I know summer is coming to an end.
There are still opportunities for summer fun, and a few of those are this weekend. Saturday evening St. Peter Parish is having its AugustFest at its athletic fields. Then Sunday afternoon St. Mary Parish is having its annual festival. Each of these offers food, drinks, entertainment, and other fun events and activities. Resurrection Parish is planning their festival, which will occur five weeks from now, just as summer officially ends. They refer to it as a “picnic” but it offers food, games, raffles, etc. Thanks to all the parishioners who work very hard to provide these and thanks also to everyone who attends. I’ll see you there!
In two weeks, our teachers will be officially returning to school for meetings and the final preparation for the return of their students. We will be beginning the new school year together in prayer, gathering in church for Mass, both at St. Mary and St. Peter. Math and science, reading and writing are important subjects, but not more important than the study of the Catholic Faith. Worldly subjects allow us to accomplish worldly things, but living the Catholic Faith will lead us to heaven, which is incomparably greater than the best this world offers. Please pray that our parish schools are successful in their mission of forming faithful disciples of Christ.
Next weekend, we priests will begin our new rotation for the weekend Masses. Currently we offer ten Masses at five different locations (three parishes and two prisons) from Saturday morning through Sunday evening. Keeping track of which priest is going where each weekend can be difficult. A big concern for us priests is not wanting to miss a Mass for which we are scheduled, and that could easily happen with our situation. However, after much pondering and praying, we have determined a plan that makes sense to us, although it might be confusing to everyone else!
I’m especially happy that our new plan for coverage of the ten Masses will allow us to visit the parish Religious Education classes on Sunday mornings (St. Mary and Resurrection) and Wednesday evenings (St. Peter). Our weekends will feel like a mini-marathon, especially as we look to be present at middle school and high school youth events Sunday evenings. We happily gather with the people of our three parishes and those at the prisons to share the wisdom and goodness of God. Please keep us in your prayers as we do you. Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated in this transition.
In HIS name,
Fr. Miller