Dec 20, 2022

Greetings!

And a Merry and Blessed Christmas to you!

If you are visiting St. Sebastian Parish for Christmas, may your visit be spiritually nourishing. It is difficult to be away from home on such days but know that you are welcome and you bring joy with your presence. Thank you for being here!

To those who are “home for the holidays:” Welcome home! It will be so great to see your faces again, especially our college students popping in during the holiday break from school and extended families back in town. Please make sure to say hello. The blessings of the season to you.

To all who call St. Sebastian Parish their spiritual home, what a joy it is to celebrate Christmas with you again unencumbered by the difficulties of the past years. We are able to have enough extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion so that we can have the Precious Blood at Midnight Mass which will also be our first Mass to be live-streamed since our service has been restored! Thank you for being the awesome parish that you are.

A special note to those who work so hard to help pull off our Christmas celebrations, too many to mention! Cleaners, decorators, musicians, ministers, schedulers, servers, ushers, sacristans - these celebrations don’t just happen, they take scores of St. Sebastianites to accomplish so that everyone can enjoy and benefit from them. Thank you.

IN OTHER NEWS:

OFFICES CLOSED: The parish offices will be closed Friday, December 23-Monday, December 26 for Christmas. The offices will reopen on Tuesday, December 27. The offices will also be closed next weekend from Friday, December 30-Monday, January 2 for New Year’s. The office will re-open on Tuesday, January 3, 2023.

BE COUNTED!: Do you receive mailings from the parish, or envelopes, or receive the Angelus Letter on Thursdays in your Email? If you do not, you may not be a registered member of the parish. Being registered helps you when you need something from the parish (such as sponsor forms, certificates and other important information) and it helps the parish in her census. If you are not registered, please do so. You can do so in person at the rectory offices during office hours, make an appointment, or register online at stsebastian.org.

If any of the information about your household has changed such as phone numbers, please call the office and let Cathy Sivec know! (330) 836-2233. We send out mailings to our alumni of our parish school. If your children have moved out of the house, Kathy Holaday would love to make sure that their letters reach them. You can call the same number to give their change of address.

If you are not Catholic but would like to consider making the Catholic Church your spiritual home, it would be wonderful to hear from you. You can call me or Mr. Keith Johnson, our parish catechetical leader at (330) 836-2233.

NEW YEARS MASSES: Next Sunday is New Year’s Day, the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God. The Mass and confessions schedule will follow typical weekend schedule.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck