From the Ground Up: Honoring the Sacred and Serving the Young

I just returned from our cemetery.  This evening, we had our first ever “Saint Martha clean out your house of religious items that are broken, obsolete, or no longer used, burial event.”  A hole was dug out at the cemetery that was four feet by about eight feet and just over four feet deep.  (We had no idea how much stuff we would need to bury, so the hole was dug quite large.)  As it turned out, a lot of things were brought in.  Rosaries were probably the number one item.  Father Dan diligently went through everything that was brought in and decided whether or not we could repurpose the item.  Some items we will use at our school, with our Youth and Family Discipleship programs, or take to our Sister Parish in Guatemala.

Along with Rosaries, we had blessed candles (including an old Easter Candle from our parish), books, missals, medals, statues, crucifixes, etc.  The two statues we received, we are going to see if they can be repaired.  One is a statue of the Sacred Heart, and the other is of Mary.  This is the first time we have done something like this.  We will have to see whether we do it again.  A reminder you can also bury religious items yourself or they can also be burned when they are no longer useful.

Back at church, I am getting ready to hear Confessions for the middle and high school kids participating in Totus Tuus.  Each day this week Father Dan and I are available for the first through sixth graders participating in the day program to go to Confession.  Tonight, Father Dan, two other priests, and I will minister to the middle and high school students.  It is amazing the great kids we have participating in this week.  In particular I am proud of the high schoolers who are helping with the day program and the enthusiasm of the kids in the evening program.  Father Dan and I often marvel at the reawakening of faith we are seeing among young people – middle school and up through young adults and families.

Next week we will publish in our bulletin, our end of the financial report.  We closed out our fiscal year on June 30.  This is the first end of year report for our new Finance Director, Scott Jacobi.  He has been doing a great job for us these past months, but it is a big learning curve to understand the world of church finances.  One thing he has quickly learned is that the summer months are difficult for us from the standpoint of cash flow.  A significant part of this is that we don’t have tuition revenue coming in from our school families.  While we have the funds to pay the bills, it does require the moving of some money among various accounts to make sure our bills are paid on time.  We also have had a few large expenses lately.  We paid for our cemetery roads to be paved, our church parking lot to be sealed, and some other end of the fiscal year expenses that always come up.  We will give more details next week.

Finally, I will be covering for the priest assigned to the parishes in Barron, Cameron, Chetek, and Strickland.  While there is an international priest who handles the sacramental duties there, I serve as their supervising pastor.  This is a good opportunity for me to visit with the people there and for them to see who the priest is whose name appears on their bulletin and on official documents once in a while.  We are blessed with both Father Dan and me here that we can help out occasionally when other parishes are shorthanded.