My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We celebrate the Feast Day of St John Vianney this weekend.  A Blessed Feast Day to all in our Family of Parishes.  We conclude our Feast Day celebration at the 10:30 am Mass with an Eucharistic Procession around our Church followed by a Parish Luncheon.  Please join us if you are able to.

 

We had our Mary Our Queen Human Needs Committee Annual Garage Sale last weekend.  The preliminary numbers from the proceeds of Garage Sale are around $70,000.  Special thanks to Mary Parizek and all our volunteers who made this possible.  This is a wonderful tribute to our Parish for all the hard work that is done to proclaim the Gospel through our lives.  All proceeds from our Garage Sale go to support families in need in our Parish boundaries.  Thank you once again for your generosity.

 

Our Christmas in July is now Christmas in August at St John Vianney.  In the narthex there is a Christmas Wish List tree with ornaments requesting gift cards that will support our Outreach program for the less fortunate.  On each ornament is a prayer that we invite you to pray for the individual or family that you will be supporting.  We thank you for your generosity.

 

We are preparing the finishing touches of getting ready for School at Mary our Queen and basement classrooms at St John Vianney for the new School and Religious Education Program year. Over the summer we have been making repairs, painting various spaces that needed it, cleaning, remodeling four classrooms, installing a new PA system for the School and new boilers for the school and Kenny Center.  Our hope for the main School Building is to complete the remodeling of all classrooms and have ceiling tiles and new lighting installed in the hallways within the next three years.  This will update the main School building – a project that was started in 2020 beginning with the replacement of the HVAC units of our School and the replacement of its windows.

 

Terry Gloe who maintains our facilities at St John Vianney will be retiring at the end of August.  I am grateful for all Terry has done to serve our Parish.  While Terry is stepping down, he will be assuming a part-time role in our Parish on Mondays and Thursdays where he will continue to work with the Duet group who comes to St John Vianney on a weekly basis to help clean our Church facilities.  With Terry’s upcoming retirement, I am appointing Tom Gregor who is Director of Building and Maintenance at Mary Our Queen, to assume a new role as Director of Facilities for our Family of Parishes.  We are looking for a maintenance technician who will work with Tom Gregor serving our Family of Parishes.  Please see our website for more details.

 

I am still looking to plant a few trees at St John Vianney Parish to replace some of the trees we had to remove over the years.  The cost of having a tree planted is about $600.  I am hoping to plant four trees or a few more this summer. I am also looking to plant about five spruce trees by the eastside of our parking lot by the fence line at Mary Our Queen.  We will have the existing bushes taken down and new trees planted by the existing spruce trees.  The cost of having a tree planted is about $600.  I am also looking to plant 2-3 spruce trees by the Rectory.  If you are able to help us defray some of that cost, I would appreciate it.

 

Blessed Feast Day to all of you,

Fr Marc