Catholic Services Appeal

Ah Springtime! We usually associate this time of the year with new life, the annual Tulip Festival and finally more moderate temperatures that allow us to put away our winter coats and to throw open some windows in our homes and let in the beautiful fresh air. There is another side to Springtime, that we would all just as soon avoid. This darker side of Spring inevitably brings hours of backbreaking yard work, IRS taxes, road construction and the annual Diocesan Catholic Services Appeal (CSA).

The CSA is a poignant reminder to us as a parish that we belong to something much greater than just the outreach of our parish of St. Alphonsus. We belong to the family of Mankind of which the Diocese of Grand Rapids is a part. As an integral part of this family, we are called upon to share in its mission and ministry to the eleven counties making up the Catholic Church in Western Michigan. Perhaps you wonder at times how the funds collected for CSA are used. Here are some of the ways that the CSA funds are used: Your gift to the Catholic Services Appeal helps support the necessary financial needs of our schools, parishes and programs in the diocese. Your gift touches the lives of the unborn, the student, the educators, the infirmed, the elderly, the homeless and those suffering from injustice. Your gift underwrites ministries serving the People of God throughout eleven counties.

During these difficult financial times, we here at St. Al’s., are uncomfortable asking you to keep digging into pockets already stretched to their limit. So many of you have already been so extremely generous to our Capital Campaign and we thank you for this tremendous generosity. All the while, you continue your generous weekly Sunday donation. Again, a heartfelt “Thank You” is in order! If the CSA was not so vitally important to the Church in Western Michigan, of which we are a part, we probably would not push it. But it is that important for the future of the Kingdom in these parts, so we humbly ask you to do the best you can.

Keep in mind the experience of the Apostle Andrew in Jn 6: 8-9: Confronted with feeding a large crowd that had followed Jesus, Andrew said: “There is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are these for so many?” Any gift, no matter how large or small, when placed in the hands of Jesus and blessed has the potential of doing great things! After feeding 5,000 men there were twelve baskets of fragments left over. Praise the Lord!

Please be as generous as you can be, leave the rest up to Jesus!

The Pastoral Staff