Respect Life Sunday
This year’s Respect Life Sunday comes as a real and practical challenge to us. For, in November, state Issue 1 is placing before voters a very clear option to disrespect life in a number of ways.
Vote No
To summarize why issue 1 disrespects life: 1) it threatens parental rights, 2) puts women at risk, 3) allows abortion through nine months of pregnancy and 4) is misleading. I invite parishioners to read page 10 of this bulletin and to visit catholicaoc.org/VoteNO to explore additional reasons why we should vote “No” on issue one.
Our parishes will be taking open and active measures to oppose Issue 1, encouraging all parishioners to prayerfully consider voting “No” in November or for early voting. This is in concert not only with our call to respect life and witness to truth in a world that relegates truth to each person’s opinion or feelings, but also because our Archbishop and the bishops of Ohio are actively opposing the issue and calling Catholics to proclaim the good news of truly respecting women and defenseless life in the womb.
For a reflection about how the Church can be properly involved in politics please go to the website and see my bulletin article in the July 30 bulletin.
Stewardship of Talent Preview
Thanks to parishioners who participate actively in our stewardship weeks by completing a stewardship card and putting it in the collection. Cards can be offered any time over the next weeks and if you missed a card there are copies by the church doors.
Please preview next weekend’s Stewardship of Talent card. Recall that the talent card lists so many ways parishioners can become active in parish life by sharing a talent such as liturgical ministries and parish leadership. Like the “Time” card, we can check whether we are already ‘involved’ in a ministry and/or whether we are “interested” in finding out more about that ministry.
Upping Our Game
As we received our yearly financial state of the parish talk from finance committees last week, I was pleased to hear the good news that one of our parishes reported a 14% increase in Mass attendance and a 12% increase in giving at that location last fiscal year!
Many thanks to all who are able to “up” our personal games, increasing our generosity of time, talent and treasure. When we “up” our personal games, we help others and our parishes as a whole up their games too!!
New Pastoral Council Season/ Agenda Items
Last week I spoke about the pastoral council agenda item entitled “Amalgamation or Merger.” These are the two possible approaches to our parishes becoming one over the next four years.
To review, in becoming one canonically (in Church law) a closing parish can be 1. Amalgamated: subsumed under another, so that the ending/closing parishes’ parishioners become part of the remaining parish or 2. Merged: where all parishes end/close and a new parish entity begins. In our case, because we have five parishes, there could be a combination of those possibilities over four years, a couple of parishes at a time, until one parish remains, an existing one or a new one.
The other agenda item I asked pastoral councils to consider was the Mass schedule. Let me explain.
Two Priests, Six Masses
According to the Beacons of Light strategic plan, our five parishes have been allotted two priests. We have been blessed so far to have three, which allowed us to keep the previous number of Sunday Masses. However, sometime in the future, we will have only two priests. Therefore, we need to have a Sunday Mass schedule for two priests ready to be implemented.
On a usual basis priests are permitted to celebrate two Masses in a day. Taking into account the possibility of weddings and funerals on Saturday, we need to eliminate one Saturday evening Mass going from three to two. We also need to eliminate one Sunday Mass from our schedule, going from five to four. Of course, Mass times and priest travel time also figure prominently into this equation.
Therefore, at last week’s pastoral council meeting, I asked pastoral councils to assemble a Mass Time Subcommittee, much like the one formed over a year ago as Beacons of Light began. That committee diversified our Mass times. Please be praying for the new committee.
Faith Community Nursing
As announced last weekend and as described on page 11 of the bulletin, we can be excited about the beginning of a new ministry at our parishes, “Faith Community Nursing.” Like all new ministries, we need volunteers to help, especially nurses and people trained to take blood pressure. Thanks to those who are able to help!
Town Halls
Our Parishes Leadership Team (PLT) and the Pathways Planning Team (PPT) are organizing town hall meetings for Crescent Parishes in October and November. Please be jotting your questions and concerns down and plan on attending a town hall meeting. Wonderfully, there will be at least one meeting at each of our parishes. Multiple meetings increase our options and ought to ensure outstanding attendance!