Aug 10, 2023

Greetings,

As this is being written on Monday morning, I am holding my breath wondering if it is going to rain. If it doesn’t rain today, they will start putting down a layer of tar on our new Mull Avenue. And if they are able to do that, on Tuesday of this week they should begin laying bricks. And if they do that, the road should be completed enough for use by the frst day of school up through the five-way intersection. But the sky is dark, the clouds look heavy, and my magic phone is predicting a chance of rain all day.

IN OTHER NEWS:

AUGUST 15TH IS A HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION: This coming Tuesday the Church gets to celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a holy day of obligation. Mass times at St. Sebastian are:

• AUGUST 14th 7pm
• AUGUST 15th 9am, (Latin) 5pm, 7pm

FR. VALENCHECK AWAY: I will be gone from the parish all week. Joan of b’Arc and I are heading to upstate New York to visit with my family. We will return by the following weekend.

THEOLOGY ON THE ROCKS: Bishop Malesic will be speaking at the next TOR coming up on August 21! Tickets are advance sale only. No tickets will be sold at the door. Please see elsewhere in the bulletin or on the Theology on the Rocks Facebook page for information and tickets.

FESTIVAL: Last weekend we celebrated the 95th anniversary of the frst Mass of the Parish of St. Sebastian. On August 5, 1928, Mass was held in the Rankin School Gymnasium. There were four Masses on that day and 1,200 people were in attendance. The very frst collection was just shy of $500, which would be about $9,000 in today’s value.

At the 4:30pm Mass, Fr. Joseph Robinson, former seminarian intern at St. Sebastian, joined us along with a bevy of seminarians as well as our own crackerjack servers. It was tricky coming up with a processional route since half of St. Sebastian Square is without road and sidewalk, but the Knights of Columbus carried our St. Sebastian statue on its litter successfully to the festival grounds in what I hope will become a tradition for us at least leading up to the 100th anniversary of the parish.

The festivities began with the roasting of the pig at 7am on Friday morning, continued with a bourbon tasting in the rectory garden until late in the evening, picked back up the following morning with kids games and food afer Mass and confessions. There was a break for the vigil Mass followed by a procession to the festival grounds where there was prayer, food, refreshments, games, rafles, prizes, live music, infatables and a late-night candle lighting ceremony that was caught by a drone. I hope we get to see the pictures soon!

Thank you to everybody who put such great efort into what is hoped to become an annual event. The list of people who went above and beyond including our St. Sebastian maintenance and summer crews, wouldn’t ft on this page. But please know that you are appreciated and prayed for. Special mention must be made of the Borges family however, without whom this event would not have occurred. Thank you.

Thank you also to all those who attended, enjoyed and supported. And for those who were unable, mark your calendar for next year.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck