Pastor’s Corner — May 1st, 2022
Church Upgrades and the Heat in the Church Last Weekend
We apologize that it was so warm in the Church for the masses and the Divine Mercy Service last weekend. Most of our A/C units were down and we couldn’t get them to work. For those who were really uncomfortable, thanks for being patient and remember how to unite those tiny sufferings up to the Lord. The past couple of weeks we’ve been in the process of upgrading our system in the Church to all digital thermostats and adding additional sensors, which will dramatically help us keep consistent temperature in the Church. This little blip occurred in the middle of this upgrade. Our hope is that this will be done by this weekend.
Brighton City Council Marijuana Vote: May 11 6:30 PM Brighton Community Center
Back in March in my bulletin article, I mentioned an upcoming vote by the Brighton City Council on whether to allow commercial marijuana business in the City. Since that article, the vote meeting was significantly delayed from the originally-intended date, but is now finalized at 6:30 PM on Wednesday May 11, at the Brighton Community Center - 555 Brighton STREET, Brighton 48116. Please note this is not the usual City Hall location, the Council has shifted to a larger venue for the expected turnout.
As you may recall (Dec 12 bulletin article), our school principal and I have written letters to all the local municipalities/townships, encouraging them to protect the youth of our community from the negative consequences of marijuana use, by prohibiting marijuana businesses in their jurisdictions. This City Council vote is a critical test for our community on the topic of that letter. All City Council meetings include an opportunity for public comment from any community member, and so I encourage you to please attend and speak up at this important meeting, and reinforce this important message to the Brighton City Council.
Remember that our participation in civic and political life, big and small, are concrete ways we can fulfill our task of bringing the reality of heaven to earth. When inspired by Christian principles, we can make a difference in this world.
Two Branding Inserts: Communicating our Identity and Mission
Branding is not just about logos, graphics and colors. It’s primarily about effectively communicating our identity and mission. A few years ago we unveiled the parish branding and last month unveiled the new school branding. In this weekend’s bulletin, you’ll find two one-page (back and front) identity guides that display the parish and school branding. Here are a few notes on these:
• Since each of these identity one-pagers communicate our who we are and why we do what we do, it’s important that parishioners familiarize themselves with both of them.
• The school branding is a “sub-brand” of the parish, which essentially means that key elements of the parish brand, such as colors, wordmark, and a font, are also featured in the school brand to highlight that St. Pat’s Catholic School is in fact a ministry that flows out of St. Patrick Catholic Parish. But since the school it has its own unique culture as a school it has additional features not found in the parish brand such as different colors, logos and a font.
• The parish and school have longer and more detailed “brand guides” that govern how we communicate so as to ensure consistency and clarity.
• As you can tell, we haven’t fully implemented the parish’s brand across our facilities largely because of a big pause due to COVID. We will be issuing new interior signage in the parish, PLC and AFFC buildings likely to start this summer.
• One thing you’ll notice is that the school has more core values than the parish does. When we went through the same process with the same branding consultants we also had five core values. But a leadership consultant later helped us refine them as two.
Transformation Night Talk on May 6th: The Power of Courage
For those who might be interested, I’ll be giving a talk on the “Power of Courage” at the Encounter Ministries Transformation Night on May 6th in the PLC at 6:30pm. The evening begins with praise and worship for about an hour and then I will give a teaching. We end with prayer ministry for people. As always these Transformation Nights by Encounter are free and open to the public.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias