Pastor’s Letter & September 20 Bulletin

Pastor’s Letter & September 20 Bulletin

18 Sep 2020 | Posted by: chadmin

The September 20 bulletin is available online.

Dear friend,

I pray you are doing well. The challenges of Covid-19 continue to affect us all, but we are seeing good signs of progress at St. Philomena. Daily I pray for all those who work in healthcare and those that have suffered from the virus, as well as those who have recently died. We all need to maintain our vigilance as we seek to come back to normal. When the shutdown first began, I remember watching the coronavirus task force presentation. I was deeply saddened by the numbers presented. At the time, the taskforce said that if nothing was done, 2 million people could die and even with shutdowns 150,000 to 250,000 people could die. Fortunately, while we didn’t see that frightening number of 2 million reached, we have seen close to 200,000 beloved Americans pass from the virus. It’s been humbling to watch closely the development of treatments and even soon-to-come vaccines by American ingenuity. Even in the midst of a terrible situation, we have many reasons to be grateful for all those who used their gifts and talents to collectively fight the virus. While we have a long way to go, our collective effort will help us heal together. Our school year continues to go well and Mass attendance has continued to increase, but all of our steps to normalcy depend on us putting God first, our families second, then our work and school. All other unnecessary aspects of our cultural life can take a back seat for the time being. Let’s keep praying for each other and remaining vigilant.

The Annual Diocesan Appeal, the ADA, was postponed from April to September this year. Typically, we show the Bishop’s video during Mass and have an in-pew solicitation. With our current lack of shared items, we will not have pledge cards or pencils in the pews. We plan to communicate the link of the Bishop’s video electronically for you to watch at home. We are all getting used to watching church on technology! I wrote a letter that was mailed to each registered household with a pledge card. You can fill out the pledge card and return it in the self-addressed envelope or fulfill a pledge and watch the video online at cdop.org/ada2020. Thank you for helping St. Philomena Parish fulfill our parish responsibility to help fund Diocesan ministry.

One of my favorite parables is the Gospel reading this weekend. Jesus told these short stories to make deeper theological points. The landowner in the parable, or God, hires laborers, or the faithful, to work in the field or the world. The simple point of the parable is that God hires or calls people into His field at different times of life. Put better, people respond to God at different times of life. God wants us to see, no matter when we wake up to His truth, the goal of Heaven is a payment for a life well lived that we can all receive. No matter the reality of our decisions yesterday, God calls us to begin working harder on salvation today. Imagining that moment of presenting ourselves before God at the end of life can help us realize the opportunities for growth in each of our lives. May the Lord give us the grace work hard for our personal salvation by deepening our faith in His love and Mercy.

God bless

Father David