Pastor’s Letter: September 3, 2023

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We celebrated our 60th Anniversary in conjunction with our Patroness Feast Day at Mary Our Queen.  As always, we give thanks for the Blessings that we have received the past 60 years as we build our future where we continue to Make Missionary Disciples of Jesus.  Thank you to Susan Huse for chairing our Anniversary Celebrations and the volunteers from all our Parish Organizations who made our celebration a memorable occasion.  Thank you also to our Mary Our Queen musicians for providing live music.  We look forward to celebrating 50 years at St John Vianney next year.

Mary Our Queen will be having their Fall Festival on September 9 beginning with an outdoor Mass at 4pm and St John Vianney will have their Fall Festival on September 24.  Please join us if you are able. We pray for favorable weather for these wonderful occasions.

Mary Our Queen School had Curriculum Night for our lower grade parents on Tuesday evening. It was wonderful to see so many parents this week and last.  We are blessed with our teachers and the academic curriculum we are able to provide our students.

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 17th.

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 also 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.

This weekend, Fr Reiser will be speaking at all Masses at St John Vianney to make an appeal for St John Vianney’s Capital Campaign. Fr Reiser has so 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 needs 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 to be addressed 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