Christmas Thanks

We are truly blessed at Holy Rosary to have so many people who help around the parish throughout the year. It is especially moving to see your generosity during November and December when we have numerous special events and extra work to do. I particularly want to thank those of you who have reached out to the needy during this time. We are proud of and grateful for the work that our parishioners do in serving those in need in our community, some of whom have been doing this for many years.

Thank you all for being part of our celebrations and for your joy and faithfulness in spite of the economy and other difficulties in your lives and in our world. We have enjoyed some beautiful liturgies and traditions these last weeks thanks to lots of hard work by many people.

Special thanks to our competent, energetic and generous parish staff for your leadership and for handling so well the many extra stresses and pastoral needs which surface during the Christmas season. Thanks as well to my Dominican Brothers for your dedication to the ministry and for your support.

We Dominicans want to thank all of you for your prayers, cards, flowers, delicious food, drink and sweets, clothing, money and other gifts. Your tremendous outpouring of affection fills us with gratitude and inspires us to give more of ourselves in serving you.  May God reward you for your kindness and bless you all in this coming year. Happy New Year to all of you!

--Frs. Vicente, Daniel, Ed, Bart and Roberto

Update on Fr. Jordan and Fr. Joseph

Both Fr. Jordan Bradshaw and Fr. Joseph Sergott (who were assigned to Holy Rosary in recent years) have had serious health issues recently. Fr. Jordan has been diagnosed with b-cell Indolent Lymphoma. This type of lymphoma is usually not curable because the cancer grows too slowly to be targeted accurately by most modern treatments. Nonetheless, it responds well to treatment, and patients live a long life. Fr. Jordan has begun his treatment.

Fr. Joseph had a stroke in December. Here is a recent update he sent to us Dominicans: " I'm now in the middle of outpatient therapy here in Chicago. Every day I go to a rehab center to do three different kinds of therapy: speech therapy, general physical therapy and occupational therapy. I've come a long way in speaking, but still cannot celebrate Mass on my own. My sister takes me to Mass every day. Physical therapy now focuses on getting my eyes to work together (You could say that they don't see eye to eye!). I'm usually dizzy all the time, but I have made great strides in this area. My hardest therapy is occupational where I work on getting back the use of my right hand -- it is slow and exhausting, but they tell me that I have a good chance of getting it back almost 100%. My faith is strong and I rely totally upon God. My daily prayer is Job 1:21. Thanks for your support and prayers. I feel blessed in that so many people have carried me with their prayers."

Please keep both Frs. Jordan and Joseph in your prayers. If you would like to contact them, here is their contact information: Fr. Joseph will be at this address until January 15th: 22945 W. Lochanora Dr., Hawthorn Woods, IL 60047. After January 15 he will be at St. Dominic Priory, 2390 Bush St., San Francisco, CA 94115. Fr. Jordan is at Blessed Sacrament Priory, 5041 Ninth Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98105.

 

Finances and Changes at Holy Rosary

Once again, I want to thank all of you for helping us achieve our goal of raising $100,000.00 the last two months to reduce our debt. I am grateful to all of you for your sacrifices in this effort, and I am especially grateful to Fr. Daniel for his tireless energy and to all those of you who are helping behind the scenes. I have no doubt that we will accomplish our goal to pay off our debt by Easter.

Our parish Finance Council is looking at our budget for 2017. They are working very hard to help us have a balanced budget, and, for the first time since I have been here, we are actually going to include in our balanced budget the cost of depreciation as well which is approximately $180,000.00. In order to achieve that balanced budget, the parish staff is going to have to make some changes that will affect our salaries and the hours we are available in the parish offices. One of our secretaries is retiring, and, instead of finding a replacement for her, we are going to try to cover her job with existing staff that we have. In addition, the staff is not receiving Christmas bonuses this year and we are not adding a cost of living increase to salaries for 2017. Finally, we will be closing the parish offices at 6 p.m. Monday through Friday (instead of staying open until 8 p.m.) and we will close the offices on Saturday and Sunday. I apologize for any inconvenience this will cause you parishioners, but all these changes will save us many thousands of dollars in our expenses for this year. Please continue to pray for this process as we go through changes in our parish.