Dear Parishioners,
This past Holy Week was wonderful! The liturgies were all so beautiful and inspiring thanks to our musicians, lectors, altar servers, extra ordinary ministers of Holy Communion, decorators, sacristans, and you, our parishioners who came out to worship. In spite of the negative press the Church has been getting, our attendance remained steady – 1638 this year and 1637 last year. And again, our parishioners were just as generous as last year. My thanks to everybody.
Summer time is the time of personnel changes. We will be seeing a number of priests retiring and/or receiving new assignments, but thankfully, I will not be among them. However, there will be some changes here among the staff. Our Director of Religious Education, Katie Torrey—who has done such good work here—will be taking a position with the Archdiocese in Missionary Discipleship aka Faith Formation. We will miss her but know the Archdiocese will be fortunate to have her talents and make good use of them. Taking her place will be our current youth minister, Claire Horvath, who having worked with Katie the last 8 years, will bring continuity to the program along with energy and enthusiasm. Taking Claire’s place will be Melissa Boyle who had the Youth Ministry job when I arrived here 10 years ago before taking several high school teaching assignments. She, too, has a great deal of energy, enthusiasm, and experience in working with young people. We are blessed to have her back.
Finally, our organist/choir director, Marianne Gregory, is retiring to spend more time with her family. Having worked with her 9 years at my previous parish as well as the past 4 years here, I will miss her. Taking her place will be J.J. Klapa who brings a wealth of experience as an organist and choir director in several other parishes. I look forward to working with him in the years ahead.
Hopefully, things will settle down now and for the foreseeable future. May the rest of the Easter season be good to you and your families.
Fr. Carl
Rev. Stephen Hook is Pastor of the Pastorate of the Visitation which includes the Catholic Churches of Pasadena, Maryland: St. Jane Frances de Chantal (Riviera Beach) and Our Lady of the Chesapeake (Lakeshore). He is assisted by Associate Pastor Rev. John Belinki, Deacon Howard Klohr, and Deacon Rick Clemens. To learn more about our pastorate, please visit www.catholicpasadena.org.
