Jan 05, 2025

Greetings,

Happy New Year!

I suppose our college students and other visitors are just about to slide out of town about now if not already packed up and gone. If you read this, it was nice seeing you! May the prayers of this community follow you on your adventures.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Because of the holidays and publishing deadlines, this bulletin article needed to be written to you before even we celebrated the Christmas Masses, so the news is a little more general.

SAINT SEBASTIAN DAY: This year we will be celebrating our patronal feast day on the weekend of January 19. St. Sebastian, pray for us!

AWAY: Immediately following that day, I will be leaving town for a week for further training for our parish to become a training parish for transitional deacons. Transitional deacons are those men who will go on to become the future priests of our diocese. I will be back by the following weekend.

OUR MOTHER OF SORROWS: This ministry in the parish does several things but most importantly attends Funeral Masses. That is incredibly important in a number of ways: It brings comfort to families, they make the responses at Mass particularly when a family is distracted or perhaps have not been to a Mass in a long time, and they provide prayers for the deceased. It means about 45 minutes of your day if you would like to participate. Please contact the parish office for more information or just come!

DO NOT GET SCAMMED: Do not believe any email you may receive purporting to be from a priest or
person working at the parish that is requesting money or gift cards or anything of the like. Do not respond to a questionable email or phone call but call the rectory directly or look up a parish email and respond that way rather than hitting “reply.” This is not the way we ask for your assistance even in an emergency.

Also, I recommend not toying with such a person. Often, they are in a foreign country acting against their will by the real perpetrators. Simply stop responding, contact the parish and the authorities if it seems appropriate.

AROUND ST. SEBASTIAN SQUARE: As of the week before Christmas, our greenhouse was given the thumbs up after its final inspection and now we can fully occupy it. One of the first things that we did was put a (vastly undersized) Christmas tree in the middle for the holidays. Now that it is up and running, we can turn our attention to other things such as landscaping in the spring. Keep an eye out for an upcoming open house when it will be opened for you to visit. Thank you to everybody who made this project possible.

The leak in the lower roof of the church by the St. Patrick statue has been repaired and the plaster ceiling has been patched and painted. Hopefully that is the last of that!

God bless,
Fr. Valencheck