Pastor’s Letter: May 7, 2023

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We had a celebration dinner for all our graduating high school students last Saturday evening. We wish all our graduating high school students the very best in their future endeavors. As quite a few graduating high school students were not able to make it to the celebration because of previous commitments, we plan to schedule this graduation celebration to a Sunday morning brunch that will be served after the 11am Mass in the future.

Last Sunday we celebrated the end of our combined ALPHA with St John Vianney. We are grateful for all who assisted in making this joint session a success. We hope to launch a new joint session of ALPHA with St John Vianney in the fall. Please stay tuned for more details.

We had several teams from our school qualify for the VEX Robotics World Championship through the Nebraska VEX IQ State Championship. Last week, I was fortunate to join our teams who qualified in the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas. Congratulations to our students who made it to the World Championship. We are truly proud of your achievements.

I will be leading a 12 Day Marian Shrines Pilgrimage in October and would like to take this opportunity to invite you to join me in experiencing the miracles of Lourdes, Fatima and Santiago de Compostela. The highlights of the tour includes Lourdes, Basilica of St Pius X, Santander, Fatima, Barcelona, Santiago and Montserrat. We will be visiting the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Montserrat outside of Barcelona, the Grotto of Massabielle, where Our Lady appeared to Bernadette in 1858, partake in a Rosary and Candlelight Procession in Fatima where our Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children – Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco. We will also visit Santiago de Compostela where the Tomb of St James was discovered, Loyola – the hometown of St Ignatius. The brochure for the tour can be found in the Narthex or in the Parish Office. Call the Parish Office if you need any more details.

This year our Parish celebrates its 60th anniversary. We are planning to do a Parish wide celebration on August 26 which will coincide with our Patroness Feast Day – the Queenship of Mary. Please stay tuned for more details.

Looking ahead with Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney becoming a Family of Parishes, we will through the month of May and June be working out the final details on how our offices will function as well as to lay out best practices that would help in our transition. Please keep our Parishes in your prayers.

A stewardship appeal was made for our Parish during the Masses over the last two weeks. One of the biggest positives is that we continue to grow our school each year and we will have our largest number of students enrolled for our upcoming school year in more than 15 years. Unfortunately, while our collection has more or less been the same for the last five years, the cost of running Mary Our Queen has increased significantly. While we continue to do our best improve efficiency while addressing the needs of our Parish, our stewardship appeal is to help us continue the mission of our Church. We hope you will prayerfully consider these 3 things

Increase or make a consistent offering
Sign up for our online giving program
Determine where you want to be involved or need involvement within our Parish.

We will be launching a Stewardship campaign in the near future. Thank you for your continued love for Mary Our Queen and your generosity.

The Raise the Paddle project for the MARQUEE is for a new H/Vac system for the Gym. This will address one of the needs of our Parish as well as to provide air conditioning for the gym. The cost for the new H/Vac system is $200,000. At the time of writing this letter we are at $128,000. We are inviting you to help us meet our goal for this new H/VAC system. You can donate to the Raise the Paddle project online at https://ppay.co/e1Abf13sypc or you can drop off your donation at the Parish Office. We thank you for your support.

God’s Blessings,

Fr Marc