Nov 20, 2023

Greetings,

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday this bulletin article was due Friday, November 17. And since I will be in Washington DC for the end of the week, this article was written two weeks ago. So, some of the news may be old to you already.

For example, on this Monday (Nov. 13) the road crews are working diligently to complete all the cement work around St. Sebastian along Mull Avenue. The curbing is being lengthened and two “landing pads” are being poured, one by the main entrance to the school and one between the crosswalk and the church plaza.

Not completed yet is the installation of new lighting and signage. Bricks still need to have specialty cuts up by Schneider Park and that should bring the road itself to a completion, perhaps by the time that you are reading this. The last piece of which I am aware is the converting of the Mull/Hawkins traffic circle into a roundabout. With that, we should see the end of road construction in our neighborhood for a little spell!

IN OTHER NEWS:

HALLOW APP COMING TO ST. SEBASTIAN: Hallow is the number 1 Catholic prayer app in the world that just passed 1.5 million downloads, 25 million prayers completed, 35,000 five-star reviews. Users can download Hallow to find peace, sleep better, pray more, and deepen their relationship with God. The personalities include Fr. Mike Schmidt and Mark Wahlberg among many others.

And the news gets better! Hallow is coming to St. Sebastian Parish for a promotional concert with Daniel Oberreuter on Sunday, December 3 at 6:30pm. It will be an evening of praise music and prayer and an introduction to the Hallow app (which I highly recommend.) The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments to follow. See elsewhere in the bulletin for more details.

ORGAN RECITALS: Starting on Tuesday, December 5 we will be having our annual Advent Adoration and Organ Recitals at noon in the Church. Come listen to different organists from around the area play while adoring Christ. The recitals are free and last approximately one-half hour.

THANK YOU: At the State of the Parish Address I made mention that the parish was losing a Mass (which also means a collection) due to the loss of the Extraordinary Form Mass at a time when the school was changing over to accepting state funding, means that funds that we count on coming in earlier in the academic year are coming in later from the state. These two things combined gives us a little bit of a cash flow strain. So, a HUGE thank you to those who are stepping up to the plate and making an extra effort in our collection. You are awesome! Many blessings to you!

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: Chase Bills will be stepping away from youth ministry at the end of the year as her life takes on some exciting new challenges. I would like to thank her for all her efforts with our community and wish her the best with her exciting news! Additionally, we welcome to a full-time position Jack Franceschi who has been our young adult leader who will be taking on the youth program and join our staff as a full-time minister. Welcome onboard Jack (again)!

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck