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I am very proud of you, the people of Holy Spirit Parish. Why would I say that? Because many of you take your discipleship in Jesus Christ seriously. You are people of prayer and you make true sacrifices to serve God and your neighbor. Not all who claim to be Catholic, or even Christian, not all who are registered as our parishioners, put their faith into action or fully participate in the sacraments. But those of you who do are making a huge impact in our parish and on our community. Let me give you a few examples: those of you who make the sacrifice to pray before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the Adoration Chapel at St. Mary provide our parish and community with spiritual power; those of you who volunteer in the countless opportunities to serve your neighbor, whether it be the occasional blood drive or food preparation or those who assist with food and clothing distribution, those who call parishioners and ask if they need anything and check in on their neighbors; those who take the Blessed Sacrament to the sick, the homebound, nursing homes, hospitals and those who are temporarily homebound because of illness or surgery. The list goes on and on.Read More -
On the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4th, we were treated to a joyful surprise. Fr. Nick Spirko drove all the way, himself, from the Vincentian Home to visit us. As you can tell from his photograph, he is looking fabulous! He said he is feeling better than he has in many years. The rehab has done him a world of good. He is very grateful for everyone’s prayers and support over these months of recuperation. Father is doing so well that he hopes to move from the Vincentian Home to the St. John Vianney Manor in Crafton, the retirement home for priests of the diocese.Read More -
As you know, this past week we celebrated the last of our Patron Saint Feast Days for this year—for St. Vincent de Paul. The following is a brief summary of the life of St. Vincent de Paul taken from the publication, Give Us This Day, a Catholic Daily Mass booklet.Read More -
A huge thank you to God Almighty for the beautiful weather and spirit of peace and joy on our 1st Annual Holy Spirit Parish Picnic at Cascade Park! I am extremely grateful to God and to you for your participation in this spirited gathering of our parish families. Words cannot express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Parish Picnic Committee who worked long and hard to make the picnic a fabulous time for all in attendance. I’d like to personally thank the Picnic Committee for their unselfish dedication to this new project:Read More -
What happened 20 years ago on September 11th scarred our country. There was a pouring out of evil—and yet, an even greater pouring out of good! We can focus on the few terrorists who took innocent lives and caused great havoc, or we can focus on the thousands of courageous, brave, and daring noble people who ran to help their neighbors.Read More -
It will soon be 20 years since the 9-11 attack on our country. I don’t know about you, but it is hard for me to believe it was 20 years ago. In some ways, it seems like a lifetime ago and in other ways, it seems like it was just yesterday.Read More -
As we begin this new school year, it is exciting to know that we have over 40 students going to our new partnership with St. John Paul II Elementary School and the Kennedy Catholic Family of Schools! Our pledge to help with tuition relief in our support of Catholic Education for the children in Lawrence County continues. Friends of Catholic Education is the organization in our parish that assists our families that have children in Catholic school. We not only support those going to St. John Paul II Elementary School, but any child in our parish that attends a Catholic elementary school. We have two children from the parish in other Catholic schools in the diocese that we also support financially with tuition relief. If there are others in the parish, we would support them as well.Read More -
September 12th is our First Annual Holy Spirit Parish Picnic. It will be held in Cascade Park beginning with Holy Mass at 11:00 am. After Mass, our three food trucks will be open from Noon to 6:00 pm to take the free food tickets you get when you check in at the Registration Table. There will be competitive games from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, including Bocce and Cornhole for adults as well as games designed for the kids. During the day, vintage cars will be displayed in front of the Dance Pavilion, visible from East Washington Street. Paint the Holy Spirit on Canvas will be in the Carousel building from 1:00 pm until 4:00 pm. The Red Coat Band will play from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Then, at 4:00 pm, we open our celebration to residents of the county to hear the music of the Dorals, who will play until 6:00 pm.Read More -
This weekend, as we celebrate the great Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, we also celebrate our oldest church building, St. Mary’s. Just like all of the other commemorations of our church buildings, we are celebrating a Saturday evening Mass followed by a small reception.Read More -
I cannot help but think of my mother, Alice McCaffrey, on this weekend. Of course, I think of her every single day and pray to her as well. But on this weekend, I am particularly mindful of her, her laughter and her sweet smile, as I remember her tender love. On the 7th of August, 1960, she gave me life. On August 8th, 2011, she was born to eternal life as she passed from this world into eternity.Read More
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August 4, 2019 Holy Spirit Parish in action
This week, beginning on August 7th, the first major festival of Holy Spirit Parish will begin and continue for four days! A huge thank you to everyone who has donated, volunteered and assisted in any way in making our first festival a reality! Special thanks to the festival committee which has worked for many months pulling this all together. It is a wonderful event of fellowship and fun for the entire community. None of it would be possible without many hours of volunteer help and organization. We give thanks to God for his many blessings and also for the gift of each other. See the schedule on our cover page which highlights the food special of each evening as well as the entertainment.
This past week, Sr. Annie led a summer work camp for girls in the parish of Holy Spirit. Three sisters of St. Francis and nine young teenage girls spent the week doing service projects at the parish sites of Christ the King and St. James. They also helped at the wonderful, young people’s and families’ picnic at St. James site this past Sunday. They washed tables down at St. Vitus for the upcoming parish festival and they hosted a pro-life baby shower with over 100 women and girls who came with gifts for Alpha & Omega and Catholic Charities. They ended their week visiting the Franciscan sisters in the Wexford area.
There was a fabulous family picnic for the young families of the parish hosted at St. James site this past weekend, Sunday, July 28, from 1 to 5 p.m. Thank you to Rose Butch for organizing the Holy Spirit Family Gathering and its activities, and all her volunteers, especially the core crew of Ilana Ilongo, Heather McCosby, Amy Chornenky, Jean Pascale, Joe Mercurio, Pete Pascale, Doug Butch, Lorrie Millette and Chris Baker, who got drenched in the dunk tank. See page 12 for pictures and more information. We look forward to having many such celebrations to get the families with children to know one another! Look out for their next adventure. Rose is already planning for a September 29 event from 5:00 to 9:00 pm.
God love you,
Fr. Mac
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July 28, 2019 Strategic Planning has begun
A few weeks ago, I invited all the interim Pastoral Council and Finance Council members, and some folks who have expressed interest in participating on these councils, to come to a very important strategic planning meeting on Saturday, July 27. This meeting took place from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm in McGurk Hall at St. Camillus. Facilitating this endeavor was consultant, Tom H. Murray.
Mr. Murray, founder and principle of Wexford Run Consulting, assists executives and senior managers with strategic planning, marketing, product management, and M&A activities. He leverages his expertise, structured approach, creativity, and coaching style to help executives and their teams create and implement growth initiatives.
Tom is a proven executive with over 20 years’ experience in high tech strategic planning, marketing, and product management. He has worked for high growth firms, both domestically and internationally, ranging from start-ups to multi-billion dollar organizations. His accomplishments include identifying and justifying strategic acquisition and OEM relationships, developing over 40 strategic analyses/proposals, managing over 15 product lines, conceiving and developing a $100M+ product line, and establishing the marketing foundations for two start-ups.
Mr. Murray is also an adjunct professor of Strategic Planning and Product Management courses at CMU's Graduate School holding a BSEE from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Over several hours, he guided us as we studied what it means to be a parish, developing our purpose and our goals as a parish community. In addition, we explored and examined all of our resources and how best we could use them to achieve our goals.
My hope is that after going through this process together and refining it with the leadership team, we will be able to come to all of you as a whole and go through the same process together to glean your input, insights, wisdom, and suggestions. We will host town hall meetings to ensure transparency. Please watch the bulletin and the Holy Spirit Parish website (see note below) at www.hsplc.org for announcements of these upcoming meetings.
God love you,
Fr. Mac
