Pastor’s Letter: September 10, 2023

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I pray you had a Blessed Labor Day Weekend.  Labor Day in the United States is observed the First Monday of September where we celebrate the social and economic achievements of the American Worker.  In response to the “May Day” celebrations that is sponsored by the communists, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St Jospeh the Worker.  The Feast Day speaks of the dignity of human work in light of the creative work of God.  St Joseph in his quiet way as a carpenter and the foster father of Jesus is a wonderful example of the holiness of human labor.  We believe that through the work of human hands, not only does it provide for our families, but it also raises the standard of living in our Country.  We are grateful for all the work of the American Worker that transformed our Country to the way it is today.

Last weekend, Fr Richard Reiser was honored by the Institute for Priestly Formation with the St John Paul II Award.  This award was established to honor priests who have been a special part of your life and at the same time support the mission of IPF.  Congratulations to Fr Reiser.

On the 60th Anniversary of Mary Our Queen and in conjunction with our  patroness Feast Day, drawing from a tradition that I established a year ago, we presented the St Joseph the Worker Award to Sam and Lucy Marasco.  Sam and Lucy together with Msgr. Kenny have been founding members of our Parish and they continue to support our Parish in so many ways to this very day.  Congratulations to Sam and Lucy.

On Saturday, Mary Our Queen had its Fall Festival.  We are grateful to Dave and Angie Mills for chairing this wonderful event that gathers our Parish Family together.  St John Vianney will have their Fall Festival on September 24.  Please join us if you are able.

We had our Parent Meeting for our Religious Education Program at St John Vianney on Tuesday, and we began with a Family Mass for the Religious Education Program at Mary Our Queen on Wednesday.  If you have not registered your child for Religious Education, kindly contact our respective Parish Offices for details.

We continue to keep all those affected by natural disasters, especially the fires in Maui and hurricanes in California and Florida. If you would like to help those affected by the fire in Maui, we will be holding a second collection on the weekend of September 17.

I hope you have received a mailing from our Parish that details the needs of Mary  Our Queen in addition to a Stewardship renewal.  We invite you to kindly pray about it and to consider making a love offering that helps us address the needs of our Parish as well as to help us build upon our future.  Our hope is to raise an endowment scholarship in honor of our Founding Pastor, Msgr Kenny that  provides scholarships to students in need and to put aside money for a contingency fund.  As a kickoff to our Capital Campaign and Stewardship renewal at Mary Our Queen, we launched a $60 for our 60th Anniversary appeal.  There are envelopes on the narthex table.  Once again thank you for your generosity.

Fr Reiser spoke at all the Masses at St John Vianney last weekend in making an appeal for St John Vianney’s Capital Campaign.  Fr Reiser has graciously undertaken to write a series of Icons – Christ in the Glory of All the Saints to help eliminate the Parish debt.    We have detailed the background of the loan which St John Vianney made to remodel the Church as well as to build upon our campus a  few weeks ago.  Our current loan balance is $1,351,766.67 which we continue to service.  I am grateful for Fr Reiser for leading this fundraiser.  He has already unveiled the main panel – Christ in Glory.  This panel has been hung at the upper back wall of the Church.

In addition to servicing our debt, there are two major repairs for our Campus at St John Vianney that need to be addressed.  The first is our roof which is leaking throughout our building.  After getting several roofers to make recommendations, we should be able to replace our roof for under $100,000.  The other part of our Campus that needs addressing is the bell tower.  We are working to find solutions to  fix it as all four pillars of the bell tower have cracks in it.  In the next few weeks, we will be sending a mailing with the hope we can address these repairs and to help retire our Parish debt at St  John Vianney.  For all who have given, we are grateful for your generosity.  Your generosity helps us build upon our future.

We thank you for your consideration.

God’s Blessings,

Fr Marc