Pastor’s Corner — November 3rd, 2024


Recap Homily #3 in Series, Final Homily This Weekend

This last weekend, Fr. Joshua did a great job preaching part three of our four-part homily series, “The Lay Commitment to the Foundations of the Common Good.” Essentially, he said that what God reveals to us about marriage and the family is really good for everyone in society. Over and against the rampant moral relativism in our culture today, we who are convinced that what God reveals to us is true are to vote for candidates we believe will defend and promote the dignity of marriage and family life. The questions he asks in the last part of the homily are worth repeating here:

• Which candidates will promote and protect the goods of marriage and the family as God intended them?

• Which candidates will most likely protect children from the lies and confusion of gender ideology and promote the good of the family?

• Which candidates will promote policies that protect the rights of parents to educate and be involved in decisions regarding their children?

This weekend I’ll close out the homily series and preach on the principle of subsidiarity and the human right to religious freedom, which is rightly called the “synthesis and summit of all other fundamental rights.”


RSVP Deadline for Parenting in the Digital Age Event

On November 21, 2024 at 6:30pm in the PLC, St. Pat’s Parish and School are hosting a powerful and informative evening highlighting the challenges parents face in today’s culture that is saturated with technology, social media, smart phones, and other digital resources inundating our youth. Sr. John Dominic, OP and Dr. Karen Villa will discuss three critical findings on brain development and how technology can significantly hinder relational development which, in turn, can lead to anxiety, depression, attachment disorders, and other challenges in our youth.

Importantly, attendance to this event is by RSVP only
. Please sign up here by no later than November 6 to join this important event.


S3 Campaign Update

During this time volunteers are still calling parishioners and parishioners are also prayerfully filling out their pledge cards. We’ll give a major update on how we are doing in our goal in a week or so. Our final date for this campaign, a date by which we hope everyone can make a pledge is December 7th-8th weekend. Thank you ahead of time for your generosity.

Bishop Boyea is inviting all families of the parish to consider making a gift to the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars campaign. Your support to this campaign will impact the future of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Lansing and our parish for generations to come.

Also remember that as part of this campaign, a percentage of the funds raised by the parish are returned for specific parish needs. In our parish, campaign funds will specifically fund improvements to the Parish Life Center parking lot across the street, both by repaving our current lot and expanding the lot significantly for more parking for youth and parish events.


Parish Email and Being “Spammed” By Our Parish Staff?

If you’ve reached out or replied to any of the parish staff via email in the past few months and have not received a timely response, please look in your SPAM folder. We’ve been recently informed that a significant amount of our emails has been filtered to parishioners’ SPAM folders. This is particularly the case if you use a Gmail email account. We’re working with our tech support to resolve this problem but, in the meantime, check your SPAM.

Also, if you’re reading this and not receiving the Midweek Email Update, I strongly encourage you sign up for weekly updates here. In addition to occasional important emails that we send out to the parish from time, these midweek emails are well done and at times have more up-to-date information in them than the bulletin. For example, this weekend when we changed the Mass time after the bulletin was printed, the Midweek email is the perfect avenue through which the parish can be updated.

Also, if you are signed up for the Midweek Email but you are not getting them in your Inbox, please check your Spam and mark them as not Spam.


Church Bathrooms Update

Ryan, our Director of Operations, gave me an update today that the countertops that we ordered for the Church bathrooms (in gathering space) have been delayed, which is still delaying the entire project. As an update, once these come in late November/early December, we will proceed with the refreshing of our men’s and women’s bathrooms in the Church, which will include new toilets, countertops, sinks, soap and paper towel dispensers, lighting and paint, etc.


Going to Brazil and the Election this Week

This Monday Nov 4th, I am traveling to Brazil to escape the country for the election…well not exactly for that reason. :) I am going on a ministry trip with four others from Encounter to the Archdiocese of Sao Paolo. I will be back the following Monday, Nov 11. Please say a prayer for our mission, which will involve teaching during the day and some evening revival meetings. Specifically, this means I will actually be out of the country when we find out who won the elections in our country. I’m okay with that.

As I said to my staff this week, no matter what happens, Jesus Christ is still our Lord and King. I know a lot of people are struggling with all things political these days and as important as this election is, in the end what matters most is our relationship with God and being faithful to doing what he asks of us.

Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias

Previous
Previous

From the Vicar — November 10th, 2024

Next
Next

Pastor’s Corner — October 27th, 2024