Sunday, July 19th 2020
Dear Parishioners,
We thank you for helping us to distribute fresh food last Saturday at St. Anns Parking. We are able to participate in this ministry with the support of the Catholic Community Services, who sponsored this event. I feel strongly that we need to assist our community during this time, which is very hard for all of us, as well as supporting our farmers who are working hard on their farms. We thank you for informing our neighborhood, so we are able to invite families in need to receive fresh food from this ministry. We are very happy to support those families in need of support. I am able to see that we have many young people who are able to assist us from the Confirmation classes and the Eucharistic Youth Group.
We congratulate Candidates from the Religious Education Program that received their Sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion last week with some support from their family. We also congratulate those couples from our parish that joined our Catholic Faith to celebrate the Sacrament of Matrimony in the Church after they completed their preparations. We also congratulate those who received the Sacrament of Confirmation when they joined the Church for Full Communion. We thank Father Dwight who assisted us with a few Daily Masses during the reopening of our parish and Father Patrick for supporting us with Weekend and Daily Masses, even though he is finally retired. So, their help has given me time each evening to celebrate Sacraments with Candidates and with our new members, who joined our Church with their families. We thank our volunteers for assisting us with the Faith Formation Program of our parishes. They are doing a wonderful job in preparing Candidates to receive different Sacraments (they had spent a whole year or two to prepare them). It was a joyful day and moment when we celebrated it with them, but it was a lot of sacrifice that they have done for our program.
We have many parishioners who are experiencing grief from their love ones who have passed away. It is very difficult for their families, because they did not have a chance to celebrate the life of their love ones. They are in mourning with the hope that someday they can celebrate the life of their love ones, but due to the pandemic and it effects causing their life to become more complex (difficult), they are not able to do so. Our parishes offer them support in praying for them and we have our homebound ministry to call them and we journey with them in our daily prayers. You are cordially invited to join us to pray for them. We had five different celebrations last week for burial service, Memorial Mass, and Funeral Mass for those families.
We thank you for your support by volunteering in different parish ministries that we have for our reopening and we need your support with finance, as we have to spend more money on supplies to keep the Church clean (disinfectants), hand sanitizers and other cleaning supplies to ensure all those that come to the parish are safe. We are very happy to be in the Church for those that are healthy, but many of our parishioners are not comfortable or are able to go to the Church. We are trying to have Livestream Masses for the Weekday and the Weekend for those who are not able to join with us in the Church, but it is hard for us, as we need more volunteers who have the talent in using the technology to support us. We would like to invite our youth and those that have the talent and skill to assist us in this area. Please assist our parish during this time of need.
We thank parents, godparents, sponsors, relatives and friends of Candidates for First Holy Communion and other Candidates for celebrating their Sacrament during this summer time. We congratulate you for your patience and love for the Church by engaging and encounter with different ministries. We thank you for keeping our Sisters in your prayers during their long week of silent retreat. May the Lord continue to bless upon you and your family!
We are in different phases depending on which county we are living and staying in. Despite where we live, we still need to keep social distancing and wear a facemask at all times in public. When you enter a hospital to visit someone, the hospital staff will stop you to check your temperature and they will ask you six questions before they can allow you to enter the hospital and this is similar for when you enter the Church (this is the norm and vital in keeping all those that come to the Church or those that you visit safe). We want to make sure that you are healthy, so you can assist others or you can visit others. When you do not feel well (even when you have a little symptom of being sick), please stay home to take care of yourself as in doing this you are keeping those around you from being sick. When you are well again, you can take care of others.
We congratulate St. John of the Woods Church for achieving their Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA) goal for this year. We are encouraging 100% participation, so we can receive the rebate to work on our parish project. Those who have not yet made their commitment to the ACA, please do so, we can be over the goal to support our parish with what we need to have done.
Our parishs ordinary income (finance) is down as a result of several months of not being able to have Weekend or Weekday Masses. Many parishioners are not able to contribute to support our parishes, so we have a big gap in our budget. Therefore, we ask you to be generous in supporting our parish with what you can financially or by praying for our parish, so the Lord continues to support our Faith Community.
We thank you for taking time to assist us in keeping our parish ground look beautiful. We know that you are very busy with your family and your jobs, but you still are able to give some of your time to help our parish. May the Lord continue to bless upon you! We are in transition of reopening our parish for various activities and ministries. We thank you for your patience and your care in helping us with all different tasks that we have to do.
May the Lord continue to bless upon you and your families!
Sincerely, Yours in Christ,
Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min
Pastor