Dear Parishioner:

Your financial support of St. Bernadette Parish is truly a gift from God. I'm writing to invite you to participate in a brand new program that St. Bernadette is offering to make it much easier to fulfill your very generous gifts to our church and missions: Faith Direct.

Through Faith Direct, you can make all of your contributions and second collections to St. Bernadette via automatic payment from your checking account or credit card - just as you may do now with your mortgage payment, cable bill, and other regular expenses. Faith Direct offers us a secure way for you to send, and our parish to receive, your regular contributions - even when vacation or business takes you out of town, or an illness prevents you from attending Mass.

Many parish members have told me that with busy schedules, children to manage, and the other challenges of everyday life, they sometimes forget to bring their envelopes to church, or find themselves out of checks or cash on Sunday morning. Frequently, they are troubled when, due to illness or vacation, their contributions don't get to the church every week as they want them to. Many parishioners have requested this type of financial commitment as an option.

Faith Direct will provide you with a personalized "offertory card" that you can choose to place in the offertory basket as a visible sign of your support. Faith Direct will also provide you with a detailed itemized statement for your tax purposes at the end of the year.

With the hope that you are interested, I have enclosed an enrollment form on this exciting new way to support our parish family for offertory and second collections. As we strive to live as good stewards, please give this program and the amount of your parish support prayerful consideration; your gift will be a tremendous help to the ministry and operating expenses of St. Bernadette Parish.

You might also want to visit the Faith Direct website, www.faithdirect.net, for more information or to securely enroll on line by using our parish code VA70.

I pray you realize how important your gifts of treasure to St. Bernadette are, and will continue to be, and how much I appreciate your generosity. Rest assured that I have complete confidence in the security of the Faith Direct program and I will be enrolling myself. As technological advances continue to shape the world in which we live, I feel that Faith Direct will be the vehicle in which the faithful will donate their gifts of gratitude.

Thank you and may God bless you and your family.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Rev. Kevin J. Larsen Pastor