December 4, 2022

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We had our First Confessions for our Second Graders on Tuesday. Congratulations to our Second Graders in celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We would like to thank our Catechists for preparing our children to receive the Sacrament.  Please keep them in your prayers.

While I was leading my pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I received word from the Chancery that Fr Tom Bauwens will not be coming to Mary  Our Queen.  At this stage, we will not have an Associate Pastor until at least June and I am not sure what happens after July when Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney become a Family of Parishes.  I am grateful for all the Priests who have made time to celebrate the Sacraments here at Mary Our Queen over the last few weeks.  To help us with coverage in celebration of the Sacraments the next few months, we are fortunate for Fr Rob Scheiblhofer for making time to assist us with confessions and Masses during the weekdays and weekends and Msgr. James Gilg for being available to celebrate Mass on Sundays at 5pm in addition to all the wonderful priests who have assisted us so far.

I am grateful that Jake Cortright agreed to step up to serve as Religious Education Director in addition to his teaching duties in the school and Youth Minister.  Jake was supposed to assume a new role in the Summer of 2023 in a hybrid role of Religious Education Director, Youth Minister and Teacher that will involve Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney forming a Family of Parishes.  With the removal of Fr Mario, we needed to make these changes at this time.  There are a few more roles that are needed to be filled for our Parish Office.  This will be addressed in the next few months.

The replacement of our HVAC units for the Church and Cafeteria are more or less done.  What is left is the bacnet interface cards that allows our HVAC units to be controlled together with the rest of our HVAC units on our campus.  There are two more major projects that will take place in the summer of 2023.  The first is the replacement of the upper levels of our school’s old steam piping which will be done after the School year.  The other is the installation of a new HVAC system in the gym.  This will take care of the replacement of the steam piping that began two summers ago.  Unfortunately the steam piping in our school building dates back to the time when our school was built which is why we are making these changes as quickly as we can.

As we approach 2023, you will be hearing about our Stewardship renewal plans for our Parish.  This will not just be monetary, but it will incorporate the financial, ministry and spiritual needs of our parish and school community.  We are blessed with an exceptional parish
community and my prayer is that we continue to grow in our faith and service together in light of our Pastoral Planning that involves St John Vianney.

God’s Blessings,

Fr Marc