Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,
I would like to welcome back all of our St. Martin’s School children as well as all of our children in religious education. Not many parishes have the privilege of forming almost 800 children a week in the faith! Thank you to all of our wonderful and dedicated teachers and catechists, as well!
Next Sunday, September 25, I will present our parish’s financial report from July 2021-June 2022. You will notice that because of your generosity (offertory and donations) and sound fiscal responsibility we finished with a surplus of revenue over expenses in the past year. I will also ask for you to consider increasing your offertory donations—to Take the Next Step—this year. We have not yet rebounded in our weekly offertory to where we were before the pandemic. Certainly our expenses have not decreased nor has the workload at the parish. I ask you to prayerfully consider your weekly or monthly offertory gift to the parish, and consider giving more. Even just $5 a week more per family will help us to balance the budget in this fiscal year. I thank you in advance for your consideration of this request.
I want to draw your attention to a new ministry that we are introducing to the parish called Stephen Ministry. This is one-onone grief counseling by trained laity from our parish for parishioners facing a difficult situation in their lives. Over the course of this year we will provide information concerning the ministry so you know what it is and for whom it is designed. We will also be recruiting parishioners with sound spiritual backgrounds to be trained as Stephen ministers. Please see the bulletin blurb that we have written up concerning Stephen Ministry to get an initial idea of what this all about.
Lastly I would like to put on your radar a parish ministry fair that will take place on the weekend of October 22-23. We are asking the dozens of active groups at St. Martin’s to present their ministries in the parish hall so that more parishioners might get involved in the liturgical, spiritual, catechetical and charitable activities of the parish. If you are not currently active in a particular ministry in the parish, this is a wonderful opportunity to see how God may be calling you to be of service at St Martin’s.
In Christ,
Fr. Dave.