Keeping the main thing the main thing
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Please keep in your prayers all of those who received the sacrament of anointing at a special Mass this Saturday morning. May this powerful sacrament they have received give them strength of mind, body and soul. Congratulations to our young people who received the sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop Zubik this weekend. We pray that this sacrament will truly strengthen our young people to be more committed than ever to, Christ Jesus.Read More
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We know that the word “eucharist” means thanksgiving. But sometimes, we forget how important giving thanks to God truly is. The Gospel, this weekend, reminds us to recognize our blessings and to give thanks. It always amazes me the attitude of some in our community who are so negative and are filled with doom and gloom! They remind me of the characters on the old television show, Hee Haw. You know who I am talking about? The fellows who would lay on the floor and sing their song lyrics “Gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me!”Read More -
Please keep our 76 confirmands in your prayers as they will be confirmed by Bishop Zubik on October 20 at 2:00 pm at St. Vitus. My sincere gratitude to all of the parents and catechists for helping our young people prepare for this important sacrament.Read More -
This week Father Anthony, Father Brendan and myself are with other priests of the Diocese at the multi-day convocation in Oglebay, West Virginia. Our gratitude to Father Nick, Father Molka and our Deacons, John and Dan, for holding down the fort in our absence. Please keep all of clergy of the diocese in your prayers in a special way during this week.Read More -
Thank you to all of our parents and children for attending our Teaching Masses at St. Camillus and St. Vitus. I also want to thank Father Anthony for his assistance in doing some of the Teaching Masses. I look forward to having all of our children and parents at Mass every week. On Sunday, September 15, after my last Mass, I drove to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia as part of my duties as chaplain to the FBI.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
