May & June are busy months for all kinds of celebrations, even in a parish family. We congratulate the parents of Alexander Heath who was baptized last Sunday & the parents of GianLuca Capone who was baptized this Saturday. We also extend our best wishes to Amber Kemmerer and Bryan McIntyre who were married this past Friday, and to Fire Chief Angelo & his wife Maria Calvillo who will be renewing their vows this weekend at the 4pm Mass as they celebrate their 30th Wedding Anniversary on June 20th. My classmates and I celebrated our 30th Anniversary of Ordination this past Tuesday on June 7th. May God bless us all as we all strive to live out our baptismal, marriage and ordination commitments with the help of God's grace.
In case you missed it, I announced at all the Masses last weekend that our adjusted Mass schedule will take effect beginning on Sunday, January 1, 2017. I have written another article for the upcoming News & Views newsletter which detail again the many reasons for this change. I thank you for your supportive words this past weekend as we continue to deal with current realities concerning the number of priests available to celebrate Mass. There are some other small details concerning this that I didn't have time to include in my homily. First, Fr. Joe Pednikar will continue to celebrate just one Mass per weekend and will rotate between the 4pm, 8am and 11am Masses. Fr. Vesely will concelebrate one of the weekend Masses and will still be able to celebrate weekday Masses since our chapel area does not have steps. While we will not have a scheduled Mass on Thursday mornings when I am away from the parish for the day, Fr. Vesely will continue to celebrate Mass on Thursday mornings for as long as he is able. Otherwise, our daily Mass schedule will remain the same (7:30am Monday through Thursday and 8:30am on Friday). I mentioned that we need 3 Masses on Easter Day since we have only one Mass (the Easter Vigil) late in the evening on Easter Saturday night at 9pm. We will be able to add a 9:30am Mass on Easter between our normal 8am & 11am Easter Day Masses. We will likely have 2 Masses on Christmas Day (at 8am & 11am) since most people attend one of the 3 Christmas Eve Masses at 4pm, 7pm or 10pm. Our adjusted Mass schedule will also allow us more time between the two Sunday Masses to have our RCIA sessions as well as our (soon to be announced) Sunday catechetical sessions where you will have opportunities to learn more about the Catholic Faith. I believe that this will only enhance our Sunday worship as we responsibly deal with the personnel changes that will be necessary in the coming years.