Pastor’s Letter: September 24, 2023
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This Sunday, September 24, we have our Parish Festival at St John Vianney. Please join us from 11:30am to 5:00pm if you can. We are grateful for all who volunteered to make this event a success.
We have been offering the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) at Mary Our Queen for the last three years and have recently assembled an atrium for CGS at St John Vianney. CGS is a Montessori based Catechesis method serving three to six year olds in the Parish with the Atrium or prepared environment that helps the relationship between God and your child to flourish. We are hoping to offer CGS for our second graders in preparation for their First Holy Communion in the near future. We are looking for more adult catechists to assist in this program. For more details, please call the Parish office. We also have a few more spaces open at St John Vianney.
The Athletic Committee at Mary Our Queen hosted their Annual Golf Outing last Thursday. Thank you to all who have supported this event. MOQ Athletic Committee will also be hosting its Trivia Night on October 14. Please join us if you can. The MOQ Athletic Committee offers sports activities for grades K to 8 for both Mary Our Queen and St John Vianney Parishioners. For more details visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/maryourqueen.athletics/
We will be changing the name of the Future Sacristy room at Mary Our Queen to Queen of Peace. As it is never ever ever ever likely that we will make that room a Sacristy, it is best we give that room a new name. There is a statue of Mary in that room holding the world in her hand as we continue to ask for her intercession for peace in our world.
To foster small group gatherings for prayer, reflection, bible studies etc, we have purchased some new living room furniture (sofas, etc) for both St John Vianney and Mary Our Queen. There is new furniture at the Family Room and Young Adult Room at St John Vianney and the Work Room (whose name will be changed) at the Parish Center in Mary Our Queen. We are hoping to create more spaces for Parish groups to gather. More details to follow.
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.
We continue to make an appeal for St John Vianney’s Capital Campaign. Fr Reiser has graciously undertaken to write a series of Icons – Christ in the Glory with 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 to 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 it 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 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