Our Parish Mission begins tonight!  We’ll gather here at 7pm tonight, tomorrow and Tuesday for our Mission, entitled The Light of Christ Our King:  Praying with Our Stained-Glass Windows, preached by Fr. Kevin Grove, CSC.

I know that our beautiful windows have been a real blessing to so many of us at Christ the King since they were installed 12 years ago.  Those of us who were here at that time know how drastically different the church looked without them; indeed, now it’s hard to even imagine the church without the windows!  But our windows are more than just beautiful; just as stained-glass has so often done in our tradition, these windows are designed to teach us and help us pray.  The hope for this Parish Mission is that it helps unlock the deeper meaning behind these windows so that they bless our parish and parishioners even more deeply.

When it comes to our windows, there’s nobody better to talk about them than Fr. Kevin.  He currently teaches Theology at Notre Dame, but as many of you remember, he served here at Christ the King in 2010-2011.  Not only is he a gifted preacher, but he was also instrumental in working with Fr. Neil Wack, who was pastor at the time.  Fr. Kevin helped to source these windows from Ss. Cyril & Methodius Parish in Coaldale, PA.  He also led the design of the side panels that surround each Mystery of the Rosary.  Our windows are a different shape than those at Ss. Cyril & Methodius, so additional panels had to be designed to fill in the empty space.  Fr. Kevin designed these side panels so that they explained each mystery more fully and help us enter […]

This Wednesday we celebrate Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, our 40-day season of preparation for Easter.  Of all the seasons of the liturgical year, this is perhaps the one in which people make the greatest effort to step up their practice of the faith, particularly through works of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  Hopefully you have already given some thought to how you are going to make this Lenten season a time that deepens your faith, but in case Ash Wednesday has snuck up on you, there’s still time!  Here are some things you take advantage of through the parish:

Extra Weekday Masses: Every Monday through Friday at 5:30pm during Lent
Extra Confession Times: Every Wednesday at 6:00pm during Lent, as well as our Penance Service on March 7th and additional times throughout Holy Week
Parish Mission: Sunday through Tuesday, March 5th through 7th at 7pm each night

Stations of the Cross:  Every Friday during Lent at noon and 7pm

*Please also note our special Outdoor Stations of the Cross on March 24th at 7pm

Prayer Resources: See the table in the vestibule for resources to aid your personal and family prayer during Lent
Service to the Poor: Consider getting involved with our St. Vincent de Paul conference:  svdp@christthekingonline.org
Annual Fish Fry: Friday, March 3rd, with all of the net profit being donated to our sister parish, Corpus Christi in Jalchatra, Bangladesh.
Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours will be prayed in the church every Tuesday during Lent after the 8:30am Mass.
Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours will be prayed in the church every Tuesday during Lent after the 5:30pm Mass
Lectio Divina (praying with Scripture) will take place every […]

This month you’ll notice a difference in your monthly envelope packet.  The blue “Parish Poor” envelopes have been replaced by a new “St. Vincent de Paul” envelope.  This marks a big step forward in our fledgling St. Vincent de Paul Conference!

In the past, our Parish Poor envelopes have gone to fund many things, including direct assistance to people who come to our front door; direct assistance to parishioners who request help; quarterly donations to service agencies to whom we refer people; year-end donations to community agencies that serve the poor; and tuition assistance to our school families.  These activities were largely coordinated through our pastoral team depending on the demand.

Since our St. Vincent de Paul Conference started last fall, our ability to serve our community has skyrocketed!  You’ve seen us make frequent pleas to help us restock our food pantry, which we’ve been using far more than we ever have in the past.  We also have many more parishioners involved in delivering food and restocking the pantry, as well.  Additionally, we’ve received many more donations from parishioners wishing to directly support this ministry.

These new envelopes will help us streamline this considerably.  From now on, all of our efforts to offer direct assistance to the poor will be coordinated through our SVDP Conference and funded through these envelopes.  They will fund our shoppers who restock the food pantry, as well as requests for other types of assistance (rent, utilities, etc.) that come to us through our Conference.  We’ve already seen how much need there is in our immediate neighborhood, and these envelopes will help us do a better job in responding to the poor in our midst with the love of Christ.

We will no longer use […]

Just a quick update on the Sneak Peek for the vestibule expansion.  I’m happy to report that things look very positive for this project.  The comments that I received from parishioners about the planned vestibule expansion were really helpful and very enthusiastic.  So many people spoke with great excitement about the ability to have gatherings after Mass, as well as the convenience of having a meeting room and the Food Pantry right there in the vestibule.  I was particularly heartened by a number of long-time parishioners who said, “We’ve needed this for a while.”  I’m so grateful that the donors we consulted in advance have made it possible to undertake this project without a huge fundraising campaign.

I’m also excited by the number of people who came to the Sneak Peek in the church.  We didn’t count the number of folks who were there, but my guess is that more than 125 people total came to see the renderings and ask questions about the plans, which was very exciting.  Many people also chose to take advantage of the opportunity to make their donation before the end of the year, and I’m happy to report that we’ve raised about $200,000 of our $500,000 goal.  This sets us up extremely well, and I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to exceed our goal.  This would be tremendously beneficial, allowing us not only to absorb any cost increases that occur in this really volatile market, but also allowing us to save any money raised over our goal towards a new church roof.  (We’ve been told we’ll need to replace the church roof in about 3 years, so I am very grateful that we can start saving for it now.)

We’ll do […]

This is a very special weekend for us at Christ the King as we celebrate the ordination of parishioner Andy Oross as a Permanent Deacon.  You’ve been seeing his picture in the bulletin for the last few years (and praying for him during this time, I know) as he’s gone through an intensive formation process, and now at last that process has led us to this joyful weekend.  Andy’s ordination took place on Saturday January 7th, and on Sunday January 8th he will assist and preach his first Mass as a deacon here at Christ the King.  We are very excited to share that special Mass with Andy and his family.

The other good news is that Bishop Rhoades has assigned Deacon Andy here to Christ the King.  He’ll serve in much the same capacity as Deacon Joe has for these last several years, assisting at weekday and Sunday Masses as well as preaching, and being involved in various other activities throughout the parish.  The ministry of deacon is a ministry of service; in fact, the word deacon comes from a Greek word that means “service”.  We first see ordained deacons appear in the Acts of the Apostles, charged with serving the poor (see Acts 6:1-7), and today’s permanent deacons continue this important ministry in the Church.  We are very grateful for his presence and all who will be blessed by his diaconal ministry.

Please join me in congratulating Andy (and Teresa, Hannah and Catie) and praying that his ministry will bless our parish for years to come.

P.S.  I know that many of you are aware that last weekend was Jessica’s last weekend as our Director of Music and Liturgy.  We have interviewed some good candidates and […]