Posted on November 9, 2022 View all Pastor's Letter
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
It seems incredible but we are already in November and that indicates that everything has begun to change. Autumn has become more visible, an indication that winter is coming and with it the great family holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
It gave me great joy to see the enthusiasm and joy with which we celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints on Tuesday, a feast that inspires us to dream and work to earn heaven, to seek God in the little things of our daily lives. The children of the school did a fantastic job, especially the second graders who participated in the mass, each representing a saint; I was impressed to see that everyone knew the virtues and qualities of each one. Congratulations to the students for their love and dedication to faith and I hope that their chosen saint inspires them to be more holy every day.
On Friday, November 11th, we celebrate Veterans Day. It is a day to honor our U.S. veterans still living and to pray for those who are no longer with us. Pray for our veterans who have faithfully protected our freedom and our country. On that day, the parish office will be closed and we will only have one mass at 9:00am. God bless our veterans.
I thank all of you who have taken the time to reflect on increasing your weekly or monthly offertory. As you noticed last weekend we promoted Amen Generosity; the idea is to increase our offertory, either 5% or 10% from what we usually give weekly or monthly. This increase can be done through weekly envelopes or electronically. On the cards you received at home, you can access the donation page with your phone. The reason why I have decided to promote this program is because after the pandemic many parishioners did not return, and some stopped giving; This has affected the budget notably. Last year, thank God, we didn’t end up with numbers in the red warning zone, but this year if we don’t put in more effort, we’ll probably end up with a deficit, perhaps not that big, but it could start to accumulate. If we are able to increase the offertory by at least 15 or 20%, we would be fine and it would help us to continue evangelizing with more freedom and without any financial pressure. As your pastor, my main desire is to give more life to the parish. I want to create more evangelization programs, some of which already existed in the past but have stalled due to the pandemic. Thanks to your support and contribution, all of this can come back to life. I am very grateful for all the effort and support you have given me so far, I am very happy to be your pastor.
Finally, this weekend is the week that begins the week dedicated to praying for vocations (vocations awareness week). I invite you to pray for the seminarians of our diocese and for the increase in vocations. One of our seminarians will be with us to share his vocational experience.
Have a happy and blessed week, Fr. Alex
