Dear Parishioners,

I thought we could take a little break in our exploration of the spiritual life to look at all that is going on around us. The Holy Spirit is truly alive in our parish as He is alive in our hearts and homes. In the short time that I have been here, we have seen a lot of wonderful things happening in the parish. This summer various high schoolers have volunteered to come for DTS (Dead Theologians Society) where they have adoration, the opportunity for confession and learn about the life of a saint and try to apply the saint’s virtues to their own life. We had 3 people accepted into the Church through RCIA for the first time in some years and we have 4 all ready to begin for next year. We have the largest number of kids participating in “Love Begins Here” ever. Thirty new families have joined our parish since last September 2017. We just had a very successful recruitment drive for the Respite Care Team, with 8 new members joining. Our EC small groups are running very well and expanding. We had a great kickoff to the confirmation course a couple of weeks ago with both parents and confirmands ready and willing to begin the preparation. We are unveiling our new logo and mission statement this weekend. I cannot take the credit for these things, as we all know this is the work of the Holy Spirit and all of His wonderful collaborators here in the parish. It is also a great reflection on the excellent shepherding of your former pastors; much of what they planted we are harvesting now.

Meet Christ, Follow Christ, Bear Christ—a condensed Mission Statement that we can all remember. We meet Christ in scripture, in prayer, and in the Church through the sacraments and catechesis. We can’t love our faith until we know our faith. Truly knowing our faith allows us to love even the source of our faith, which is Jesus Christ. When we truly love Him, we will want to follow Him. The joy and consolation of following Him, will make us want to bring Him to others to bear Him. With this “trinity” of ideals, we will develop a dynamism of evangelization and outreach in our parish that will make it more dynamic than ever before. All of this was already contained in the former Mission Statement, but hidden in the words. It is like sometimes you can’t see the forest because of the trees. We will be talking a lot about this in the future and all of the richness the Holy Spirit wants us to take from it. The creation of the new logo and Mission Statement has been an enlightening and up-lifting process. Be a part of it as you, Meet Christ, Follow Christ, and Bear Christ!