On behalf of the clergy, staff, and volunteers at Saint John, I want to wish a Happy Easter to all our Parish Family as well as our visiting friends and loved ones! I know we are coming closer to the time when our seasonal members will be packing up and returning up North, and so I wanted to express our gratitude as a Parish Family to how much you enliven our community. We have an active parish year-round, but we are especially dynamic during the winter months. Thank you for being here and sharing your faith, your time, and your joy with us. We have some tremendous plans for the upcoming months and we want to make sure you can stay informed. If you are not currently receiving our parish emails, please send an email to our Information Line: [email protected] so we can keep you in the Loop. Here are a few of the efforts we would like tell you about:
- Online Streaming of Masses and Services: Did you know Saint John already reaches over 10,000 people around the world a month? Please take a look at this map that illustrates where people have been reading our website just this past month. Imagine being able to hear Father John’s homily from wherever you are. Or get your homework from Father Jim. Or listen to Father Len’s melodious voice. We plan to set up a free online video service from Saint John so that our Masses and services can be viewed and heard on computers and TV’s simply by going to our website (https://legacysite.sjecc.org). This will assist parishioners that may be homebound, as well as for those who are out of the area stay connected. Even more importantly, it lends our Catholic Christian voice in a positive way globally to those that thirst for our love, especially in places like the Middle East.
- Capital Campaign Updates: With the Build Our Future, Serve Our Past Capital Campaign in full force, we want to make sure you know where we stand with our participation and goals.
- Improvements to Our Parish: From the facilities to the programs, we are continuing to invigorate this Parish, its ministries, and its environment to positively showcase the love, community, and healing of our faith.
The joy of our Catholic faith is at the core of our Mission here: To Know, To Love, and to Serve God in His Church and Our Community. This mission is echoed in our Holy Father’s Lenten Message for Parishes and Communities:
We share in the merits and joy of the saints, even as they share in our struggles and our longing for peace and reconciliation. Their joy in the victory of the Risen Christ gives us strength as we strive to overcome our indifference and hardness of heart.
In the second place, every Christian community is called to go out of itself and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part, especially with the poor and those who are far away. The Church is missionary by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and people…
Dear brothers and sisters, how greatly I desire that all those places where the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference! – Pope Francis 10/4/2014
Let us all take the internal joy and peace we find in our faith and turn it into action for the rest of the year. From a smile in the grocery store, even if the line is long, to assisting the youth with their aspirations in school or in the neighborhood, to caring for a relative that may not ask for help, but that you know needs it. It is in these small things, along with our stewardship, that brings God’s plan to light in our world and showcases the power of the Catholic Faith to those outside our sanctuary