My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
A Blessed Memorial Day weekend to all of you. We observe Memorial Day on Monday. Memorial Day is a day for honoring and mourning the United States military personnel who died while serving our Country. It was first observed on May 30, 1868. We are grateful for all who have served in our Military and continue to pray that God keep members of our Military who are actively serving safe.
The parking lot at Mary Our Queen is in bad shape. The cost to fix, mill and overlay our current asphalt parking lot is roughly about $150, 000. I have been trying to set aside some funds over the next few years to make that happen, however, I am told some parts of the parking lot need to be done sooner than later. I would like to make an appeal for the funds to make it a possibility this summer. If you are able to, we are appealing for donations to make that happen. There will be a second collection the weekends of June 15th and 22nd for the replacing of the parking lot at Mary Our Queen. Thank you for your generosity.
We had our last day of School at Mary Our Queen on Thursday. Congratulations to our eighth-grade class that graduated on Tuesday. Thank you to all our teachers and support staff for making our school year a success.
With the conclusion of the school year, we will now turn to updating four more classrooms in our school building. This includes new LVT flooring, ceiling tiles, and lighting, together with a new projector for each classroom. We started updating our classrooms two years ago and we will complete the renovation of the lower-level classrooms with this summer’s renovations. The classroom renovations are made possible through your generosity to the MARQUEE.
We will also be installing TVs for two classrooms at St John Vianney for our Religious Education Program. This will assist our Religious Education Program for the future.
For our Religious Education Program at St John Vianney, we will be offering the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for our first and second graders of our program in the fall. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori-based religious formation program for children. It seeks to create and facilitate a sacred, hands-on space called an atrium, in which both the children and their catechists can hear, ponder, and celebrate the most essential mysteries of the Christian faith as revealed in the Scriptures and the Liturgy. The atrium is a space where the child develops his/her relationship with God, a relationship which already exists. Mary Our Queen has been offering the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd since the opening of our Early Childhood Education and Youth Center.
Mary Our Queen will be hosting a Level 1 catechist formation beginning in June. If you would like to serve as a catechist for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at either St John Vianney or Mary Our Queen or you would like more information, kindly contact Hannah Casey at Mary Our Queen Office – hcasey@moqchurch.org.
Beginning June 2nd, we will be making some changes to Mass availability at Mary Our Queen. This will keep us in line with the directions from our Archdiocese. Based on the Pastoral Planning that was done for the Journey of Faith, one of the requirements that was made from our Archbishop in forming our Family of Parishes was that the priests in the Archdiocese celebrate no more than two Masses on weekdays and four Masses per weekend. With the amount of funerals that our Parishes have done over the last year, it was determined that we are no longer able to offer a third weekday Mass at our Family of Parishes. We had hoped that there will be a third priest assigned to us in keeping our current Mass schedule but unfortunately this will no longer be a possibility. Beginning June 2nd, we will no longer be offering Mass at 6:20am on Weekdays at Mary Our Queen. We will however be reinstating our Saturday morning 8:15am Mass at Mary Our Queen. If you have been attending Mass at 6:20am, please know that there is a 6:30am Mass at St Roberts. Please note that this decision was not made lightly.
Blessings,
Fr Marc
