Dear People of St. Catherine’s,
Thank you. Thank you to all who are doing wonderful ministry in and through this parish. In my first weeks back with you, I have been delighted and thankful that so many ministries are thriving. Christian Formation for children and youth, including the J2A group and the Young Explorers, is continuing to grow. There are new teachers and new children! Pastoral Care continues to be well organized and the lay teams of visitors, card writers, food preparers, and lay eucharistic visitors (trained lay persons who take the consecrated elements to the homebound ) are working well. Buildings and Grounds continue to do wonderful projects around the parish, as well as keep everything working. Evangelism did a wonderful job with the spaghetti supper. The Stewardship Committee has again put together a wonderful program of education and formation in the spiritual discipline of stewardship, and I am enjoying hearing all the stewardship stories, which are shared by a different parishioner each week. In Worship we have new youth acolytes and some new folks doing prayers of the people. Altar Guild is running smoothly. The choir continues to sing faithfully and well, and we are almost done with our new book of music for worship to supplement our Hymnal. The Finance Committee continues to do good and faithful work, and is working on the 2018 budget. Parish Life continues to provide the very important ministry of funeral receptions, and is planning to survey the congregation about social events. The Service Commission has just received a grant from the Episcopal Charities Fund of the Diocese toward the new backpack program they began this fall. I’m sure I am forgetting some other important things – there is so much going on here that it is hard to keep track! I remain deeply grateful for the ministry you do in and through this parish.
November brings us much to celebrate together. On Sunday November 5th we will celebrate The Feast of All Saints’. As is our tradition, we will again have banners hanging in the side aisles that were lovingly made by our quilters. These banners bear the names of parishioners who died in the past year, in order to help us remember them on this Feast Day. This year we are blessed to have THREE baptisms on All Saints’ Sunday, one at the 8 a.m. service and two at the 10 a.m. service. The quilters have also lovingly made baptismal banners for each child so that the families can take them home and hang them on their walls.
Later that day, November 5th, is our Celebration Dinner – a wonderful gathering of our parish family to celebrate all the blessings that we have been given by God. Join us at 5:30 for a fun barbeque dinner, a preview of 2018, and a talk by Canon Chris Grey.
Sunday November 12th we will celebrate our patron saint, St. Catherine of Alexandria. The ingathering and blessing of pledges will be at all three services this weekend.
The last Sunday of November, November 26th, is The Feast of Christ the King. This is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Our new liturgical year will begin with the First Sunday of Advent, December 3. I invite you now to think about how you might set Advent apart in your own spiritual life and practice. There will be some suggestions in the December Wheel.
Prayers for safe travels for all who are travelling over the Thanksgiving holidays.
In Christ,
Mother Susan+