O Come All Ye Faithful!

by Rev. Gabriel Baltes, O.S.B.  |  12/04/2022  |  A Message from Our Pastor

Dear Parishioners,

In this week’s bulletin you will find the annual parish financial report for 2021-2022. Here at St. Joan of Arc, it has been our custom to provide this report in the season of Advent which begins the church’s new liturgical year. As you study this report, you will see that it reflects the consistent generosity of our parishioners who value our Catholic faith and recognize the privileged responsibility of preserving it for the generations that will follow us.

You will undoubtedly notice a deficit of $53,756 from this past year, largely because of our commitment to subsidize our school and Religious Education Program. These are essential ministries that have been cherished by our parish community since its beginning. We are well under the diocesan 25 % limit that a parish may commit from its Sunday Offertory to subsidize school tuition. Nevertheless, it is crucial to recognize that tuition does not cover the cost to educate each student. While tuition for one student was $5,600 (with a tuition break for each student following the first one), our parish contributes $922 for each individual student in addition to that amount. This is why, it’s so important for our school families to help make up this difference through their Offertory donations and various fund raisers.

As I mentioned in last weekend’s homily, our numbers for Sunday Mass attendance are about 50% of what they were pre-COVID. In an effort to increase that percentage, I have launched an initiative I am calling O Come All Ye Faithful. This is to be an effort to fill our church for the Christmas Liturgies this year and hopefully reverse the trend in declining Sunday Mass attendance that exists in most parishes ever since the pandemic. This is an initiative that I am hoping all our regular church goers will embrace, since it falls to us all to keep our parish alive. I am asking that each single parishioner or parish family consider one person or family that has not been regular in their Sunday observance. Please hold them in your prayers during these first weeks of Advent and then consider a way you might invite them back to church on Christmas Eve/Day. It may be the case that many of these families or individuals are already planning to attend church on Christmas. An invitation to do so from a fellow parishioner may provide an added incentive. All invitations should be offered with gentleness and love without any tone of judgment or righteousness.

If our parish and school are to survive at this time in history when the closing and consolidation of our hallowed Catholic institution are all too frequent, then there needs to be a concerted effort on all our parts to keep these establishments vibrant and conspicuously “Catholic.” I believe God will help us do this if, on our part, we are willing to commit time, talent and treasure to this cause. May God, who began the good work in our parish and school, bring it to an even greater growth through us.

O Come All Ye Faithful!