Be Mindful

Dear sisters & brothers in Christ,

I pray that you are blessed and safe. The former is easy since our gracious Lord continues to pour blessings upon us. The latter remains tricky these days with contradictory reports and recommendations on what we should be doing to protect ourselves and, just as importantly, our neighbors. A number of people have asked me over the last couple weeks if we would be returning to mandatory masks for everyone attending mass in person. While we are not quite at that point fortunately, I do remind anyone who is not vaccinated that you are required to wear a mask for your own safety and that of your fellow parishioners. We are also trying to keep the two wings of the church for those who have health concerns and not only want to wear masks, but would like to keep socially distant from others. Please respect their wishes and be mindful that we have a number of people who cannot receive the vaccine and whose health circumstances place them in a high-risk category. I want them to feel that they can still physically come to church and remain relatively safe. Let us all continue to pray for an end to this pandemic.

All of this may seem like we are going in two different directions. Last Sunday we hosted our first purely social event in quite a while. I hope you were able to stay a while after mass, celebrate our patron Saint, and catch up with your sisters & brothers in Christ. I want to thank the various groups and volunteers that made our after-mass gatherings possible. I also want to thank those who helped with our census and all of you who filled out your card. If you have not had a chance to do so, there are cards in the back of church or you can call the office for a number of other ways that you can fill out an information card. We are working on an electronic version.

On the back side of the census card we have asked for some general ministry information. We are asking what ministries are you currently doing (even if you’re inactive at the moment due to the pandemic) and what ministries you would like to receive more information. We also are asking if you have any skills or hobbies that might help the parish at some point in the future, such as carpentry, sewing, computer programing, photography, etc. For example, I am currently looking for a number of people who would be willing to help us prep and paint several areas in our buildings. Some of the prep would not only require the usual scraping away old paint, but also some plaster work. We are also looking to restore our cleaning ministries that could do some focused cleaning of areas around the parish. If you have a skill that you think could be put to use in some way here at St. Alphonsus, please let us know about it. The best way is to tell us on the back of your census card as we will be entering it into a database that we can search at any time in the future when a particular need arises.

In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick