March 28, 2021
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
We enter into Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday. On Ash Wednesday, we placed Ashes on our forehead making the beginning the season of Lent. We prayed the Stations of the Cross to not only remind ourselves of what Jesus did for us for the forgiveness of sins but to allow the gift of Christ sacrifice to guide us in renewing our lives. If you did not have a chance to join us, it is available on our YouTube Channel. The gift of our Lenten observances of Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving allows us to be more open to God’s love through our life. Now we enter into this sacred week which we celebrate every year.
Palm Sunday marks our welcoming Jesus as King (as he entered Jerusalem). Christ would later be placed on trial and crucified on the Cross. He looked with us with forgiving eyes with the hope that He will draw us all to Himself. The Resurrection was offered to us because of the unconditional love of God who would not stop loving. This is why we invite you to participate in our Easter Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil begins with the New Fire that lights up the Paschal Candle which symbolizes the Light of Christ that pierces through the darkness giving us hope.
Thanks to all your generosity and the hard work of all our volunteers who worked tirelessly to make this year’s MARQUEE – Home Together a success. Please give us a few weeks to present to you the amount that was raised. Thanks to your generosity, we raised $35,175 for this year’s Raise the Paddle whose proceeds goes towards installing a variable volume terminal unit with a heating water coil in each classroom and connecting to the existing ductwork. This would also include new temperature controls for the room and extension of the heating water piping from the lower-level mechanical room to each coil. Currently the heating water piping is over 50 years old. The current estimate to upgrade the system is $240,000 ($60,000 per wing of each floor – 2 wings each floor). We are hoping to replace one wing with the variable volume terminal unit and heating water coils this summer. If you would like to contribute towards helping us make this possible kindly contact the Parish Office or make a check to Mary Our Queen Raise the Paddle.
We opened up our Parish for meetings and groups from February 1st. We continue to navigate with the COVID-19 environment and to follow our established protocol. All DCHD protocols are and will be followed. Close contact/quarantine information will come from the DCHD. As a reminder, please monitor COVID-19 symptoms. As always, if you or a family member has a fever, chills, body aches, headache, sore throat, cough, and loss of taste and smell, they should stay home from school or church until symptom free. Continue to utilize and refer to our COVID-19 Resource Page at https://www.moqschool.org/moq-covid-19-resource-page/. We continue to place the health and safety of all members of our school and parish community our top priority.
Please check out our Weekly Updates via email. If you have not received an email, kindly call our Parish Office and we will add you in our email mailing list. Thank you again for supporting us during this time. We continue to keep all those affected by this virus in our prayers.
God’s Blessings,
Fr Marc