Aug 27, 2020

Greetings,

This week we welcome back our students to classes both in person and in distance learning! I look forward to seeing all of you for this very (hopefully) unique year! Our facility and staff are working very hard to make this a great year for our students and families. With St. Sebastian as our patron saint, we look forward to tackling this year with confidence, ready for anything that may come our way.

Please keep Catholic education in general and our parish school in your prayers.

IN OTHER NEWS:

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES: I would like to take this opportunity to thank Judy Ley for her time and talent as she sewed our beautiful baptismal “bibs” for many years. She put her heart and soul into this ministry and has decided to retire. We looked into purchasing the ones that are mass produced and they are less than stunning. This is being sent out to see if anyone or group might be interested in taking on this sewing project. If you are interested, please call Cathy Sivec in the parish office at 330-836-2233.

Also, we received a St. Sebastian statuette that I want to put in the sacristy. I’ve been looking for a wall mounted statue “shelf” and have had difficulty finding one that meets our requirements. I found one online with which I was greatly pleased and was looking forward to coming home from vacation to find it delivered and ready to go up on the sacristy wall. Unfortunately I did not read the description very well as it was in centimeters and not inches and was tiny! Oh well.

If there are any carpenters or metal workers out there that want to tackle this project, please let me know. If not, I’ll keep scanning the internet.

EUCHARISTIC DEVOTIONS:  Just giving you a heads up that it will be coming up mid-September. Soon I will be looking for people to cover adoration hours Sunday through Tuesday evening!

ORDINATION:  Brian Smith who was a member of our parish and director of the choir at our 1 o’clock Mass is about to be ordained a deacon. He resides in the Youngstown diocese and is being ordained for ministry there, but I know quite a few of you knew of him and are fond of him. The ordination will be Saturday, September 12th, at 10:30 at the Cathedral of St. Columba in Youngstown. I don’t know how COVID will affect attendance but it would be swell to at least keep him in your prayers that day. Congratulations Brian!

THANKS FOR THE FLOWERS:  We received a note in the rectory with the sentiments that, “The altar flowers are beautiful again this year,” from a parishioner who cannot make it to Mass anymore and who is also very grateful that we are able to livestream our Masses. “Thank you to all the people who [livestream] the Mass and thanks to the people who fix the flowers to make the altar look so special. All that work is truly appreciated.”

I appreciate it also!

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck