My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord this weekend.  This Sunday also marks the last day of Christmas.  As this is my first Pastor’s Colum for the New Year and since my return from sabbatical, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I hope the Christmas and New Year was a joyful occasion for you and your family.  I was fortunate to spend my first Christmas in 18 years with my family in Singapore.

We are saddened by the loss of Deacon Frank Telich who passed away early in the week.  Deacon Frank was ordained a Deacon in 1993 has served St John Vianney for many years.  We were indeed blessed by his ministry here at St John Vianney.  His absence will be missed.  We had his Vigil Service on Friday and Mass of Christian Burial on Saturday.  Please keep Deacon Frank and his family in your prayers.

Work on the playground and open space by the Early Childhood Education and Youth Center at Mary Our Queen has finally been completed.  The grounds should be ready to be used in May as we need to give time for the grass in the area to grow.  This was made possible because of your generosity to our Capital Campaign that we had two years ago. This more or less completes all the major projects that we had planned to upgrade the facility of Mary Our Queen.  As always, we will continue to update more classrooms each year to help meet the needs of the school.

We had a glass panel installed between the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the Church at St John Vianney.  This was needed as we had two separate HVAC systems in the Church and the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and without it would be challenging to heat and cool the Blessed Sacrament Chapel as needed.  We also had to address the HVAC system for our Church and basement classrooms in St John Vianney which was the original unit when our Church was first built 50 years ago.  After consulting with engineers and working with Mike Winkelmann, we came up with a solution for a new system by rebuilding our HVAC system that will utilize the current boilers that are used to heat our social hall and narthex.  We had to take down some trees by the side entrance of the Church and fence out the area so that the new water-cooling system for the HVAC for the Church can be installed.  While at it, we had to address the HVAC system that heated and cooled the sacristy, the confessionals and the youth room in the basement.  The old unit went out a few years ago and we did not have the opportunity to replace it.  We took this opportunity to replace it while we are updating our Church and basement system.  We also had to upgrade the control system that controls all our mechanicals on our campus as it was no longer supported by our vendor.  The cost to rebuild the above-mentioned system was $300,000.  To finance this project, we took a loan from our Archdiocese who also helped finance our roof replacement a year ago.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Fr Steve Boes and the staff of Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney for making it possible for me to take my sabbatical.  I am grateful for all they have done.  We are indeed blessed to have such great staff that support our Family of Parishes.

God Bless,

Fr Marc