Mar 24, 2022

Greetings,

Here is an interesting number for you: 1,800. Going back into our census about a decade and a half, the number was different: 1,550. This represents the number of households registered in our parish. Twice during the COVID years we performed a phone census, confirming households, finding out who moved, switched parishes or passed on.

Recently, our office manager Cathy Sivec, was working with our data sheets and discovered that the parish had exceeded 1,800 households! The number of households we have increased over the past decade and half is more than the entire census of the parish in which I grew up!

Please keep your parish in your prayers. As is inscribed in stone on a couple of our buildings, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,” “All for the Greater Glory of God.

IN OTHER NEWS:

LETTERS:  As those of you who receive the Angelus Letter know, we have been printing letters found in a cabinet that go back to World War II. We have been contacted by the Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the Military, Neil Buckon, a native priest of the Diocese of Cleveland and with whom I was in the seminary. He wrote to say that these letters may be of interest to the Congressional Library as they have a special project for veterans or the Museum of the Army's Chaplain Corps located at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Now we just have to decide if we want to let go of the originals of these letters or not. If you have a strong feeling on the matter, please let me know.

Even if we do, perhaps we should have a display of World War II memorabilia from the parish first. Is anybody interested in working on that?

We were also contacted this morning by an Akron Beacon Journal reporter who may be interested in writing an article on the letters. We have a meeting later in the week.

CONCERT: 509 people were present for the concert to aid Ukraine last weekend. I do not have the tally for the amount of funds raised yet, but people certainly were generous. See last week’s Angelus Letter for more opportunities to donate to the Ukraine.

COMMUNION:  This coming Saturday our second graders will be having their First Communion Retreat! Please say a prayer for them!

MEETINGS:  I have not written in a while about the progress of the Catholic Schools initiative or the latest meetings about the Extraordinary Form. That is because there hasn’t been any for a spell. But lo and behold. They both start up again later this week! I will write you about them again soon!

FR. CHIMA:  We have more information about the arrival of Fr. Chima who will be staying with us for about four weeks. He will be arriving on the evening of April 27, and returning to Nigeria on May 23. Fr. Chima was previously in residence at St. Sebastian Parish during the pastorate of Fr. Karg.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck