Dear friends in Christ,
Gift Of Giving
It is not Thanksgiving Day yet but I want to offer heartfelt thanks to all and sundry of this parish who have been very generous over the years with their God-given gifts or talents in the service of the parish. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 25, Jesus teaches us about the productive use of God’s gift and grace by servants who received five and three talents. They doubled their gifts by putting them to use until the return of the master. Jesus is disappointed in the servant who buried his God-given gift instead of putting it into use. He was probably afraid of taking risk.
The use of gifts or talents involves risks. IT entails sticking out one’s neck; it often implies going beyond one’s limit. It takes an act of trust and selflessness to put to use our gifts. All of us are gifted, there is no one without a gift. Some have outstanding and extraordinary gifts while others have gifts that are not easily noticed. Whatever the case, each person is gifted to build up the church.
There are many of our parishioners worth acknowledging for the good stewardship of their gifts. I can’t exhaust the list of those that readily come to mind but will at this point identify the following: Mike Rider who worked so hard to get our new camera installed; John Gulya and his team for working tirelessly to see our church sanitized; Corrine and Michael Checco for making sure we have music at our Sunday morning liturgy; Amie Barone for preparing the memorial wreath for our deceased brothers and sisters; and so on.
I also want to thank everyone for the generous gifts of their money towards Dominican Province of Nigeria mission appeal, collection for St. Vincent de Paul’s Angel Hope project, and many individual big monetary gifts toward our parish Capital Campaign, parish cameras for streaming mass, parish benevolence fund and the Diocesan Annual Campaign. Thank you for the gifts.
Last but not the least, I want to say thank you to Parker, Lydia, Catie, and Rose for the Soul Cakes they gave me on All Souls Day after a visit to the parish cemetery, That was thoughtful of you young saints. I had to google Soul Cake to know what it is all about. Thanks for the addition to my knowledge about All Souls tradition.
In Christ,
Fr. Bernard, OP
Gift Of Giving
It is not Thanksgiving Day yet but I want to offer heartfelt thanks to all and sundry of this parish who have been very generous over the years with their God-given gifts or talents in the service of the parish. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 25, Jesus teaches us about the productive use of God’s gift and grace by servants who received five and three talents. They doubled their gifts by putting them to use until the return of the master. Jesus is disappointed in the servant who buried his God-given gift instead of putting it into use. He was probably afraid of taking risk.
The use of gifts or talents involves risks. IT entails sticking out one’s neck; it often implies going beyond one’s limit. It takes an act of trust and selflessness to put to use our gifts. All of us are gifted, there is no one without a gift. Some have outstanding and extraordinary gifts while others have gifts that are not easily noticed. Whatever the case, each person is gifted to build up the church.
There are many of our parishioners worth acknowledging for the good stewardship of their gifts. I can’t exhaust the list of those that readily come to mind but will at this point identify the following: Mike Rider who worked so hard to get our new camera installed; John Gulya and his team for working tirelessly to see our church sanitized; Corrine and Michael Checco for making sure we have music at our Sunday morning liturgy; Amie Barone for preparing the memorial wreath for our deceased brothers and sisters; and so on.
I also want to thank everyone for the generous gifts of their money towards Dominican Province of Nigeria mission appeal, collection for St. Vincent de Paul’s Angel Hope project, and many individual big monetary gifts toward our parish Capital Campaign, parish cameras for streaming mass, parish benevolence fund and the Diocesan Annual Campaign. Thank you for the gifts.
Last but not the least, I want to say thank you to Parker, Lydia, Catie, and Rose for the Soul Cakes they gave me on All Souls Day after a visit to the parish cemetery, That was thoughtful of you young saints. I had to google Soul Cake to know what it is all about. Thanks for the addition to my knowledge about All Souls tradition.
In Christ,
Fr. Bernard, OP
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