Christ the King Catholic Church

From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-07-29T10:13:56-04:00August 1st, 2021|

By now, I’m sure that you have all heard about the disturbing events of this past Sunday. For those of you who might not know, we had someone break into the church overnight last weekend. (More accurately, someone hid in the church before we locked up for the night.) This individual then vandalized the church, most notably by setting off two fire extinguishers in the back of the church and in the choir loft, as well as kicking in a vent in the choir loft. The individual was apprehended early Sunday morning as he attempted to vandalize another neighborhood business. Most importantly, no one was hurt.

After moving Sunday Masses into the gym, we contracted with First Response (the same company that orchestrated the cleanup from our sacristy fire) to clean up the mess and get us back into the church. (As I write this column, we are still assessing whether there will be any special cleanup required for the pipe organ.) We may never know this individual’s motivations for doing what he did, but the Pastoral Team will review this thoroughly to determine how this incident might prompt us to take another look at our security procedures.

I am grateful for everyone who reacted so quickly to this situation, especially since I was away on vacation and unable to help. Fr. Geoff took charge of the situation, and he and Jessica Roberts made sure that we were ready to celebrate Mass in the gym on short notice. Deacon Joe, Abby Doyle, Leslie Burns and Amanda Jeffrey worked to identify the damage and provide the police with the information they needed. And so many of our parishioners pitched in to help us set up for the gym […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-07-29T16:35:23-04:00July 25th, 2021|

Some of you have been asking about the renovation of the exterior façade of the church. When we conducted our capital campaign in 2018 (goodness, was it really that long ago?), one of the items on the campaign was this exterior renovation. The last renovation was done in the 1990’s, and there’s a lot of visible staining, cracking and other damage to the surface. Many people commented in the parish survey of 2017 that this was especially noticeable since so much has been done to beautify the interior of the church, and that the dramatic improvements from our interior renovation made an exterior renovation even more necessary.

We assembled a committee of parishioners (with a diversity of parish experience and professional expertise) to explore our options for this project. The options ranged from simple repair of the damage all the way to a more comprehensive expansion that would give us a substantial gathering space in the vestibule, which is another need cited by many in the parish survey. Our first meeting, however, was in January 2020. (You can see where I’m going with this…) When COVID closed everyone down in March 2020, the work of this committee was put on hold.

I’m pleased to say that this committee has resumed its work over the last couple of months, and our first official step has been to contract with an architect to come up with some preliminary designs of what our options might look like. This will help us assess what will best meet our needs, as well as what we believe we can realistically and responsibly do with our parish resources. (We have some donations that are specifically earmarked for this renovation, so part of the process […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-07-19T14:37:35-04:00July 17th, 2021|

“When will things get back to normal?” That’s been a frequent question ever since the COVID pandemic shut down so many things in March of 2020. In 2021, we’ve thankfully seen many things return to normal here at Christ the King: people have come back to Mass, some activities have resumed and people are reconnecting with fellow parishioners they didn’t see for a long time. There are still some things about parish life that aren’t quite all the way back to normal yet, though. But don’t worry, we’re getting there, and here are a couple of updates in that regard:

Parish Ministries: Many parish ministries still aren’t quite up and running the way they were pre-COVID, but we are excited to be able to reintroduce them soon! As part of the Parish Kickoff that we’ll have on August 21st, we’ll have a Ministry Fair that will reintroduce all sorts of ministries back to our parish. All sorts of ministries will be represented: liturgical ministries, service ministries, social ministries, formation/catechesis ministries, and many more. In order to restart these ministries, we need people! So whether you’re thinking of resuming a ministry in which you were previously involved, or trying something new, I encourage you to go to the Ministry Fair and fill out a Time & Talent Form. (We’ll give Time & Talent instructions on the weekend of the Ministry Fair.) We want things to get back to normal, and we need you to help us get there!

Sacristy: Of course, one of the things that has been out of the ordinary has been the sacristy renovation. We’ve been using the Cry Room as a sacristy ever since the sacristy fire back in February. Right now we’re just […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSc

By frsteve|2021-07-19T14:37:43-04:00July 10th, 2021|

As we continue to emerge from the COVID pandemic, you’ll notice some other changes we’ve made recently:

Parish Emails. Last week, you may have noticed that we’ve scaled back from our daily parish email and instead are sending a weekly email every Saturday. The daily email seemed to be a very effective way to keep our parish connected when so many people were unable to make it to Mass. With increased Mass attendance, though, it doesn’t seem like that need is quite as great, and we certainly don’t want to overload your inbox and become a nuisance. We’ll keep up the weekly emails throughout the summer, and then at the end of the summer we’ll reevaluate based on the feedback we get from parishioners.

YouTube Channel. For the time being, we’ll continue to live stream our daily and Sunday Masses. The viewership of these Masses is much lower than it was at the peak of the pandemic, but right now it still seems to be important for our parishioners who are homebound or otherwise unable to attend Mass. We’ll reevaluate this at the end of the summer, as well.

We will, however, continue to use our YouTube channel. In addition to live streaming Masses, this has proved to be an effective way to involve more parishioners in different faith formation and prayer activities going on here at the church. We hope this will be a good vehicle for parishioners to be able to participate in parish activities when they’re unable to be here in person.

Social Distancing. You’ll also notice that last week we changed up the cords that we have used to block off pews. Now we’re just keeping the cords on the side pews of the Joseph […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-07-19T14:40:14-04:00June 12th, 2021|

Every summer we do a lot of work to maintain and upgrade our facilities, so today I’ll give you an update so that you have an idea of what’s going on around the parish. In addition to the normal things that we do every year (carpet cleaning, floor waxing, etc.) there will be a few items that are more disruptive, particularly those associated with restoration from the damage done by the sacristy fire in February. (This work was delayed until the insurance claim was approved, but we also tried to make sure that the most disruptive parts of this work took place over the summer rather than when school was in session.) Here is some of what you can expect to see over the summer.

We will be reinstalling the sound system in the church June 14th through the 17th. We’ve been using a backup sound system since the sacristy fire, but now they’re ready to install the new system, which hopefully means we’ll be on a permanent system soon. Please note that daily Mass will be in the basement the week of June 14th while work is being done in the church. They’ll be all wrapped up in time for Sunday Mass to return to the church that weekend.
We will also be finishing up the cleaning/ice-blasting of our interior brick the following week, June 22nd through the 25th. This is a section of brick (leading into the sacristy from the church) which has not yet been cleaned since the fire. Because of the mess and the noise involved, Mass during the week of June 22nd will also need to be moved to the basement, and once again, we’ll be able to return to […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-06-08T08:03:00-04:00June 5th, 2021|

I thought I’d use this column to give you all an update on the status of our capital campaign and our bridge loan to the diocese. I mentioned to you in a bulletin earlier this year that we were taking out a bridge loan from the diocese to pay our final construction costs. This was expected, as we haven’t yet collected all of our pledges from the capital campaign. (Payments will continue on campaign pledges throughout the rest of this year.) The bridge loan enabled us to pay off our final construction costs while we await the receipt of these payments.

I also mentioned in that same bulletin that our total collections from the campaign will end up falling short of the total construction costs, although I didn’t have a final number to give you at the time. While I think we and our contractors did a really good job of keeping our construction costs under control (especially since this project took place right in the middle of the COVID pandemic, which created a ton of challenges for us), we still had some unexpected costs in completing the addition. The bridge loan will allow us to pay down these cost overruns without re-opening a campaign or dipping into savings, since it allows us to spread out these costs over three years.

Since we’ve now started paying on the principal of this bridge loan, we’ll begin publishing a monthly report on our progress so that you’ll be able to see the exact amount of our debt to the diocese, as well as our progress in paying it down. All of you were so unbelievably generous in making this project happen, so I want to make sure we’re as […]

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From Father Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-05-13T14:29:52-04:00May 22nd, 2021|

One of the benefits of being a Holy Cross parish is that we are blessed with the presence of our men in formation, both seminarians and brothers, whom we get to welcome into our parish. Over the past couple of summers we’ve been able to host guys for their summer placements, during which time we’ve been able to get them involved in all sorts of areas of parish life. During the school year we also benefit from guys from Moreau who do their ministry placements. This year we had men in formation performing all sorts of service, including tutoring, school counseling, Religious Education, Young Adult Ministry and even substitute teaching! These men are a great witness to our parish, and our parishioners are a great witness to them. It’s a real testament to the goodness of our parishioners that Holy Cross keeps entrusting these young men to do part of their formation with us.

I’m very excited to let you know that we’ll have a seminarian from Moreau Seminary living with us at Christ the King for part of this summer. Peter Puleo is from St. Louis, Missouri and is currently in his second year of temporary vows with the Congregation of Holy Cross. He moved into the rectory this weekend and will remain with us until June 21st. Because school will be in session for the first few weeks of his time with us, he’ll spend quite a bit of time helping out in the school. He’ll also work on various projects for the parish, and you’ll be hearing more about those in the weeks to come. (He’ll also be helping out at the Catholic Worker when he’s not at Christ the King.) You’ll also […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-05-13T14:32:48-04:00May 15th, 2021|

The Christ the King Virtual Auction is coming up this Friday, May 21st, from 6:30pm to 7:30pm! This is our 5th auction, and it’s a really important event for our parish. It’s by far the largest single fundraiser that we have in the parish and school, and its success has been critical in keeping our school in good financial shape without constant fundraising or huge tuition increases. (We’ve been able to keep tuition increases under 3% the last few years, and the auction has been an important reason why.)

Of course, in a COVID environment things are much different, so this year’s auction will be virtual instead of an in-person event. While we’ll definitely miss being together (which has always been a blast in the past), this will still be a great community-building event, and we need all of your support to make it successful!

Here’s how you can support the auction:

Bid on auction items! Bidding is live right now, and it’s easy to participate. Here’s what you need to do:

Go to bit.ly/CTKauction2021
Click SIGN UP to register.
Once you are signed up and logged in, you can click on the tab that says, SILENT AUCTION. You are free to browse and bid!
There are also spots on the auction website to make outright donations toward the purchase of specific items, so there are ways for you to give even if you choose not to bid on anything.
Bidding closes at 7:30 pm on May 21.

Attend the Virtual Auction on Friday May 21st at 6:30pm.

Go to bit.ly/CTKauction2021
Click on SIGN UP to register (or simply click LOG IN if you have already registered).
The Virtual Auction will begin at 6:30 pm. You will […]

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From Father Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-05-04T11:59:39-04:00May 8th, 2021|

Happy Mother’s Day! Today is a day when all of us give thanks for our mothers, grandmothers and other women who have had a formative influence on us (appropriately timed during this month of May, when we traditionally honor our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary). I know it’s been a little challenging to celebrate Mother’s Day the way we have in the past; while we’re not in a hard lockdown like we were last Mother’s Day, I know that in-person get-togethers are still a little tougher than they used to be. I also know that there are some for whom this day is a bit of a struggle – I think of our parishioners who have lost their mothers over this past year, as well as families who are estranged. (Please keep these parishioners in your prayers in a special way today.) But I hope that this is a day when we can reach out to those influential mothers in our lives with expressions of love and gratitude for the many ways that they have been instruments of Christ’s love to us throughout our lives. So often in Scripture, “a mother’s love” is used as an image of perfect, unconditional love, and I hope that each of us has experienced this glimpse of the Father’s love through these special women in our lives.

Here at Christ the King, we usually have a few different ways in which we honor and support mothers around this time of year. To echo the mantra of the past year, these things will look a little different this year, but I hope we’ll still be able to support them.

¨ Over the past few weeks, you had the opportunity to support the Women’s […]

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From Fr. Steve Lacroix, CSC

By frsteve|2021-04-27T11:52:17-04:00May 1st, 2021|

This weekend we are excited to celebrate First Communions for our children. Last year, of course, we ended up having to postpone First Communions for several months due to the pandemic, so this year we’re excited to have these Masses at the traditional time of year. Our kids have been preparing for this all year – including receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time in December – so it will be great to see these younger parishioners join us at the table of the Lord. The only change this year is that we will have First Communion at two separate Masses this weekend instead of at one of our regular Sunday Masses, but we hope that next year we’re able to celebrate First Communions at Sunday Mass like we’ve done for so many years.

One of the (many) things that makes First Communion such a special time for our parish is that it reminds all of us how important and sacred Holy Communion is. Sometimes it can be easy to take the sacrament for granted; compared to many times in our Church’s history (and compared to many parts of the world today), we have ready access to the sacrament – think of how many options we have for when we can attend Mass each Sunday, or even every day. I hope that the events of the past year, when so many people were cut off from the sacraments in a way that they’d never experienced before, have made us all appreciate how special and important the sacraments are. The Eucharist, in particular, is an incredibly intimate encounter that we have with the Lord, where His Body and Blood become part of our body and […]

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