Celebrating Vocations and Parish Blessings

A significant part of the formation for men preparing to be priests is the teaching parish experience. The time a seminarian spends in a parish is also an invaluable tool for evaluating the seminarian’s preparedness for ordination first as a deacon and then as a priest. Deacon Pat Sorrells has been with us for the past four years, as we have served as his teaching parish during the time he has spent at Saint Paul Seminary. He will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fargo, North Dakota, on June 6.

Many in our parish have enjoyed getting to know Deacon Pat these past four years. It is customary for a teaching parish to offer a gift to the newly ordained priest. Working with Deacon Pat, we have decided to gift him the money needed to refurbish a chalice that will become his personal chalice. Priests often receive a chalice when they are ordained. In the past these chalices were often beautiful works of art, fitting for what they hold, the Blood of Christ. As priests die, many give their chalices to their diocese. Newly ordained priests will often look through the donated chalices and select one for themselves. However, they often need to be refurbished. This is what Deacon Pat has done. If you would like to offer a gift to Deacon Pat, for his chalice, please turn in a check made out to Saint Patrick Parish and mark on the envelope “Deacon Pat’s Chalice.” If we raise more than is needed to pay for the refurbishment, we will give him the additional money for him to use in purchasing priestly vestments. Please turn your gift into the parish office by May 1.

It is also a blessing for our parish and me to work with the seminarians. Deacon Pat is the fourth seminarian we have worked with since I became pastor at Saint Patrick Parish. (Actually fifth, because Father Dan Tracy, our associate, was with us for the summer he was a deacon. However his teaching parish was in the Milwaukee area, close to the seminary where our seminarians go for formation.) Since our seminarians now attend Saint Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, the seminarians assigned to our parish from Saint Paul Seminary are from other dioceses. We will need to wait and see until the fall whether we are needed to again serve as a teaching parish for a new seminarian.

We are currently in the process of completing our parish budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Our current budget includes $3,733,763 in expenses. We budgeted a slight deficit for the current year, knowing that we had excess revenue the past few years which would help us cover this deficit. We never budget revenue from investment income. Income from our investments and increased giving of gifts should allow us to end the fiscal year in the positive. This is the first year our payroll has exceeded $200,000 per month. That does not include payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement, and other employee benefits. Employee expenses are by far the largest part of our budget.

A great help in the budgeting process is that we now have a five-year budget projection. This will help us with future planning. As we look to the future, we are also seeing that there is work we need to do with our building, especially the church. The good news is that six years ago we did a capital campaign that allowed us to make some major repairs to our building. However our building will celebrate its thirty-fifth year of existence this summer. There are parts of our structure that have deteriorated and need repair. Our parish finance council met recently and discussed many of these projects, their importance, and how we can fund them. Watch for more details in the future regarding these projects. Overall, we continue to be in good financial shape because of your generosity. But we do rely on your support for the largest percentage of our revenue.

Looking ahead, we are also seeing an increase in enrollment in our school. If you are considering Saint Patrick School for your child’s education, I encourage you to reach out to our school principal. While we have openings at all grade levels, our four-year-old program has only a few openings left. We are excited at what we are seeing in regard to our school enrollment.

There is sure a lot to be excited about at Saint Patrick Parish. In the coming weeks, I look forward to sharing some additional newsworthy items with you. Seeing an increase in school enrollment, ordinations of men to the diaconate and priesthood, adult Baptisms and Confirmations at the Easter Vigil are just a few of the things we can celebrate.