New Leadership Team Member, Office Hour Changes, & the Peace of Adoration
Dear Fellow Parishioners,
Congratulations to our students who graduated this week! Be sure of our good wishes and prayers as you enter high school and the life ahead. Always remember that you can find happiness and joy in serving others, that hardship can be the path to peace, and that we are all in this together. Your parishes will continue to support and encourage you.
Congratulations also to the newest member of the Family of Parishes leadership staff: Danielle Meineke. Danielle has been promoted to the Director of Communications position, and so she will be overseeing a united Family bulletin, website, social media, email blast, and all the other communication mediums we use to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ along with regular parish updates and information. Danielle will soon be taking time off for maternity leave. Please keep her and the new baby in your prayers, and we are excited to see what she will bring to our churches on her return later this summer.
As I wrote last week, church office hours will be changing, beginning June 1st, to allow the staff time to reorganize and consolidate and cover Danielle’s absence. The staff will gain time during the day, when they are not answering phones and the doorbell, to do important work such as update and correct sacramental databases and parish records in preparation for a united Family office. A lot of important work needs to be done to update the offices, bring them into the 21st Century, and make them more effective centers for boosting our parishes’ evangelization efforts.
On May 19th, we had a combined meeting of the finance and parish councils with the Family Pastoral Council, to hear a Beacons of Light update from myself and see the results of the Family parishioner survey. Those results will soon be available online for any parishioner interested. Though we had some hiccups due the new and untried combined format of these meetings, overall it was a success and most people were satisfied. We will continue to tweak the strategy for combined meetings. It is important to bring as many people together as often as we can to promote a shared and unified vision.
Please know that no decisions about closing parishes have been made. This upcoming year, we will be making changes to the Mass schedule, office location, and staff organization, guided and informed by the results of the survey. This should make a more effective and productive staff team and church schedule.
Lastly, please remember and take advantage of our expanded adoration and confession schedule. One young lady who came to adoration for the first time this past week said she wished she could go every evening. It was like “bathing in peace,” she said, “totally floating.” That’s beautiful to hear, and I invite everyone to come to adoration, to experience that peace which Jesus gives, not as the world gives, that surpasses understanding. May His peace be with you always.
Fr. Henry
