Our Teens Breathe New Life Into Our Parishes

Welcome back to our weekly church bulletin for St. Martha and St. Mary Parishes! We did not publish a new bulletin last week because we are in transition with office staffing. Thanks to those parishioners who offered interim assistance, and especially to Anne Lesnik who stepped-in and learned to use the publishing software as our temporary bulletin editor.

Our youth ministry program, also known as the “CIA” (Catholics In Action), had a wonderfully successful game night last Sunday! This kickoff of the new youth ministry year in the context of a pandemic used outdoor games as a fun way to gather our teens from all of the high school programs in our area to relax and enjoy each other’s company in a safe way. Over two dozen youth from all four grade levels enjoyed the beautiful weather and began talking about ideas for service, social, and spiritual activities in the coming months. This was all possible thanks to the new Youth Ministry Team of adult volunteers who are building on the successful foundations laid by Bob Collins and Trish Moore and the adult and peer ministers who worked with them. Please pray for this ministry “to, with, by and for our youth” to find ways to continue this success so that our teens may experience the love of God in our community of faith. They not only share in this ministry with one another, but their faith and service breathe new life and enthusiasm into our whole collaborative community!

In closing, I’ll just mention that we are working on a revised Christmas Mass schedule for our collaborative this year as we live with this pandemic. I consulted the Collaborative Pastoral Council last night and will continue consulting with our clergy, staff, and lay leaders in the weeks to come. The new schedule has to take into account the need to spread people out over a variety of times on Christmas Day as well as Christmas Eve so we can accommodate everyone who wants to attend in-person (as well as Christmas Masses online and on cable). Since the circumstances and rules keep changing, we will wait until a few weeks before Christmas to announce the final schedule, but please know we are doing everything we can to make this a safe place and strong community of love to experience Emmanuel, God-with-us, this Christmas!