Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 7 September 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

This past week we completed the Parish Renewal Handbook, Ministry Catalog, and Annual Report for 2025 and sent it to the printer. You should be receiving it in the few days around this weekend.

When you get the catalog, I ask that you read it prayerfully to consider your place at Saint Bernadette. It is good to belong; it is better and healthier, both spiritually and emotionally, to belong and be involved!  Once again this year, I ask everyone to consider how they plan to grow (1) in prayer, (2) in service, and (3) in giving to the parish offertory during the coming year. If we don’t make concrete commitments, we maybe just do whatever we did last year, or grow indifferent. The growth we want is living more deeply connected to God and his family. Our life of grace depends upon it. The finances of our parish with ever-rising costs also depends on you.

The first part of the catalog has some texts (Sacred Scripture and other Church teachings) for your reflection and meditation. Read a little bit at a time, allow the thoughts to resonate in your memory. Those of us who are older can remember back to a time (I hope) when we lived our lives with the Church more at our center. Much of our younger people today simply don’t know what that could be like. Our world works very hard to draw us away from God and from each other, and convince us that the practice of faith (religion) isn’t as necessary or as important. Unfortunately, too many people have bought the lie. Prayer and Sacred Scripture is something that we need every day. Making our “living sacrifice of praise” to God at Mass is not only required. It is the one thing that shapes us into Christ himself and makes us come alive. That life quickly begins to stagnate as soon as people stop coming to Mass to offer themselves to the Father in Jesus.

The second part of the catalog is a listing of all the ministries in the parish. You are asked to look through this section and prayerfully consider where God might be calling you to serve. Choose one. There is not a person that God is not calling to serve among his people. It might not be in the Church itself, it might be outside, at work, in the home. But the way he calls us is through the gifts we were given at Baptism. In this case, the Called and Gifted Workshop or something like it is so important, taking time to consider our life experiences and see where God was working through us:  those moments when we realize that we couldn’t have done that alone, it must have been God with us. Whatever gift you were working through at that time is the path God has for you, and you are invited to take that path not only to serve as Jesus serves, but to find fulfillment. Talk to a representative of Called and Gifted to see if you would like to include it on your Commitment Card. If there is interest, we will plan another Workshop.

(1) Decide how you will add to your commitment of prayer working on your relationship with God in the coming year. Then (2) Choose your ministry for the coming year. You will have the added opportunity to speak with people already serving in various parish ministries under the tents in front of church before and after all Masses on next weekend, September 13-14. This year we will not have sign-up sheets at the tents, you will include your commitments of time and talent on the Commitment Card the next weekend, September 20-21. Give a new ministry a try—if it doesn’t bring you to life, if it becomes a chore, then that is not the ministry for you. The Church is not a place anymore where people must just fill the gaps of need as volunteers. You must respond because you are truly called.

Finally, everyone is asked (3) to prayerfully consider if the contribution you make to the Church is enough. As Rick Caporali said at all the Masses in early Summer, our Sunday collections have stayed pretty much flat for eight years. Maybe it is time to consider giving more?  Like the cost of living, the costs of running a parish have continued to increase, as always, and as we develop ministries, add the staff needed to bring our parish community and ministry to life, and expand our campus, your support is needed more than ever. Please, give it consideration.

Now is the time for our parish to dream about what is possible with the new building. Possibilities increase exponentially with the space to achieve them. The Holy Spirit is leading us in the direction of becoming a great community and light for all.

The Lord be with you,