Dear Parishioners,
Many years ago, I had to go to summer school to catch up on math. It was warm with no air conditioning and involved a bit of hard work. It wasn’t much fun. This past week, we had school at St. Jane’s, and it was fun for all involved. It was Vacation Bible School. I attended just two of the sessions but couldn’t get over how enjoyable it was for the 31 children enrolled, our teen aged mentors, and adult supervisors. The final evening was full of life, enthusiasm, and joy. Many thanks to Melissa and all who helped make it the highlight of our summer.
Over the past few months, we had the sad duty to announce the closing of St. Jane Frances Preschool. Since then, people have inquired about the future of the school building. Immediate plans call for it to be used for Parish meetings, Religious Education classes, and Youth Ministry meetings, etc. In addition to parish functions, there will be an Independent Catholic school that will rent some of the classrooms for just one year. In addition to the changes in the school building, a daycare center will rent half of the Parish Center during the current year.
The parish itself remains strong and vibrant. Even though attendance was down as was the offertory, our cost cutting measures and the generosity of so many parishioners signing up for Electronic Fund Transfer donations have left us in a good financial position which will be disclosed in the bulletin when the financials are completed in the next few weeks. Thank you ever so much.
Each year at Mass, our gospel readings concentrate on one of the three synoptic (seen in a similar way) gospels. One year it’s Matthew; another year it’s Luke; and this year it’s Mark. So what happened to John’s gospel? Since Mark’s gospel is the shortest, during his year, there are a number of weeks that we hear from John. As a matter of fact, this week and the following 4 weeks will center on John’s gospel and concentrate on Jesus’ “Bread of Life” discourse. As the Catholic Church embarks on this Year of the Eucharist, there is no better way to begin than chapter 6 of John’s gospel.
Fr. Carl
