Feast of St. Alphonsus

Dear sisters & brothers in Christ,

I pray that you are blessed and have had a chance to enjoy some of this summer weather. This weekend we are celebrating our parish’s patron Saint and the founder of The Redemptorists. While it is a joyous occasion, it always reminds me that we are on the downward slope of summer. In simpler times it was always a Redemptorist tradition to celebrate such days with a special treat, such as, an ice cream or soda. While such treats are not so “special” these days, I still find them evoking fond memories. Thus, why we had ice cream last year. Since the Feast is falling on a Sunday this year, and in light of the long winter of the pandemic and its isolation, we have decided to do something a bit more this year. The Knights & Ladies, as well as, the Parish Life Committee volunteered to help with this. Each group chose their own way to celebrate after the mass(es) assigned to them. I want to thank all the members of these groups, and Fr. Chung, for their willingness to help us celebrate this very special Feast. Not to mention, have our first social event in quite a while.

As most of you are aware by now, we were the victims of ransomware which locked up all of our computer files. One of the most important things that we lost access to is our parish database. Since we are starting our new one from scratch, we need EVERY FAMILY to fill out a census card. We are trying to make this as easy and convenient as possible. We should have census cards available after each mass. We will also have an electric form available on our Web Page. A couple parishioners are also helping us set one up in Google Forms. If you are not comfortable with electronic versions and/or are not yet coming to church, please call the office and we can email you one or we can send you a paper version. One great advantage of all of this is that our new database will not only contain all of your correct information, as well as, emails and cell numbers, but it will allow us to thin out all of those people who are no longer parishioners. I thank each of you for your cooperation with this endeavor, as well as, our staff who has been hard at work restoring as many files as possible. Please keep them in your prayers.

NOTE: While I hope that as many people can join us as possible, I do realize that we are still in the middle of the pandemic and a number of our parishioners, including our children, have not been immunized. So, I ask everyone to respect your neighbor’s space, especially if they are wearing a mask and/or communicate that they would prefer not to have any physical contact. Thanks for your cooperation and let us keep praying for an end to this pandemic.

In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick