Dear Parishioners, School Families and Students,

This past weekend (October 11 & 12), we had our Pastoral Visit with Bishop Paprocki. This included the Bishop celebrating all three weekend masses with us and attending a special council meeting with all our councils and boards after the 10:30 am mass on Sunday as well as the Bishop touring our campus and spending some time with our PSR children and the children attending OCIC training.

All in all, I feel the visit went very well and we were able to show the Bishop the things that we are doing to remain a vibrant and viable parish in his diocese. While we have some challenges ahead of us, we are putting our best foot forward so to speak and following our mission of “Be. Grow. Make Disciples.” Some of the challenges facing right now is our mass attendance is slightly down from last year and our offertory is down. Approximately 50% of our registered parishioners attend mass every weekend and only roughly 45% of our registered parishioners tithe biblically.

Bishop Paprocki reaches out to all of us to evaluate our tithing practices and ask ourselves if we are tithing in a true biblical sense. He also asks us to reach out to parishioners that we have not seen in a while at mass and make an effort to get them to return to being active members of the parish again. While some of our struggles are still related to COVID, not all of them are and he challenges us to not only bring back the “lost and missing”, but also to draw new members in, to increase our fold. To not only continue to evangelize to each other, but to evangelize to others as well. And to continue to serve the community in all the amazing ways we currently do, but to also find new ways to serve our community.

The Diocese of Springfield Illinois has instituted a “Four Pillars” approach to growing and spreading the Word Christ that came from the 4^th Diocesan Synod completed in 2017. It includes Prayer, Formation, Hospitality, and Service. The Bishop calls on each of us to form our spiritual lives in accordance with these Four Pillars. In the words of the Bishop, himself, “In other words, we will invite people proactively to join us in prayer, especially Sunday Mass; we will provide well-prepared celebrations of the sacraments and other occasions of prayer as signs of hope and paths of grace to heaven; we will study the Bible and learn more about Jesus and our Catholic faith; and we will serve each other, especially those in need, by practicing charity and justice.”

At the end of every Mass, I say, “Go. And announce the Gospel of the Lord.” Let us take that to heart and make this our life.

God Bless,

Fr. Michael Haag