Pastor’s Corner — March 14th, 2021
The Recap of Good News Shared Last Sunday
At the end of Mass last weekend I announced four items of good news. (If you missed it, please watch the video of the announcement.)
Here is a recap of the good news:
Good News #1
Because of your generosity, we’ve officially reached our $250,000 goal for our One Mission 2.0 initiative to help pay down our debt, which we incurred through the purchase and building of our school across town. The diocese is allowing us to use overage of $113,000 from our first deal (One Mission 1.0) to go toward our current goal. Now we are over our goal by $50,000.
Good News #2
Because of the current deal, we will be repaving the rest of our parking lot off of Grand River Avenue this summer. This will make that entrance/exit so much more endurable.
Good News #3
The diocese has generously given us another deal for dollar for dollar matching up to $250,000 to pay down our debt. We’re calling this One Mission 3.0. You can still use the green envelopes to give to this fund, or simply indicate a gift to this fund online, or indicate when you send in a gift. When Fr. Joe and I arrived here in Brighton, our parish debt was around $6.7 million. If we raise this $250,000, we project our debt to be at $1.9 million.
Good news #4
Because we’re paying down our debt so well, we’ve been actively working with private benefactors and an architect to draw up plans to remodel our sanctuary. This would include wood reredos, statues and possibly new lighting and painting in the Church, with even some reupholstering/replacing of pews and kneelers. The diocese and our pastoral council have already approved the initial plans (just the reredos and statues) of what will likely become a multi-phase project. We’ll talk more about this as we get closer to finalizing plans.
Even if the later phases are just ideas right now, the initial phase will be executed at some point soon. The faster we work towards this goal of $250,000 the faster we can do this part of the project and work on planning the other work to be done. So, in a way, you can consider giving to the One Mission 3.0 initiative as giving to the new project.
I think it’s easy for some of us to forget about our outstanding Catholic school across town that was a result of us taking out the loans in the first place. Our school, which is the largest in the diocese, is arguably the healthiest school in the diocese, and it’s getting better too. The generous decision of the diocese to invest in our parish by giving us these deals should provoke a deep gratitude for how they are helping us do God’s will here at the parish.
Therefore, we have all the more reason to give to the annual Diocesan Services Appeal (DSA) which was announced last weekend. As a parish we always meet our goal, but I want to break the record of number of gifts. Like we did for the fish fry, I think we can shatter our record (which I believe is currently around 950 gifts). I’m challenging every family to give out of gratitude and praise to God. If you’re not a parishioner but you come to Mass here from time to time or benefit from our ministry in some way, I’m asking you to prayerfully consider offering a gift as well.
There are two ways to give: filling out DSA envelopes found in the pews and gathering space or donating online. If you want to give online (which is what I recommend) please go the DSA Donation page. If you want to donate using your DSA envelope, please bring it back to the parish and put it in our special box for DSA envelopes next to our Donation Box for collection by the priest vesting sacristy.
The Power of the Kitchen Table
It would be great if we completed this appeal quickly. I asked everyone at Mass last weekend to take an envelope home and place it on the kitchen table (or counter) as a reminder to give, either online or by filling out the envelope. If you haven’t received an envelope, we have plenty of them at the Church by the entrances. Thanks again for your response to this appeal.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias