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Dear Parishioners,
It is Tuesday morning as I sit down and write the Pastor’s Note for this coming Sunday.
As I go in my mind through the happenings of this past weekend, I feel excited and fired up!
I must honestly say that this past weekend has made my month!
No, it was also an important month for our whole parish.
Last Sunday was a terrific Sunday! See, how excited I am?
Here are the reasons for my excitement:
First, our Annual Parish Picnic was in many ways a great success! What a great turn-out we had. There were 200 hundred people (judging by the ticket sales) who came to support St. Anthony Parish. I would like to thank each one of you for your presence. After 2 years of the pandemic and social distancing, it was a spiritual treat to see our community members coming back and enjoying each other’s company and socializing with one another.
I hope that the name tags you wore were helpful when approaching people whose face you might have known but whose name you might not have remembered. I’m speaking from experience and therefore I would like to ask that you, please, continue to use those name tags every time you come to a Mass.
Secondly, I would like to thank the Events & Social Committee chaired by Vince Macaluso, and all the volunteers who have stepped in and helped with the preparation work, with serving and later with cleaning. There are too many names to mention each one of you, so let me just say in general: THANK YOU! You have done a great job.
Words of gratitude also go out to Malgorzata & Jacek Badowski who brought new shoes and bags for sale. Thanks to their generosity, we have received around $850 that will go towards the financial support of the parish.
One of the greatest miracles last Sunday was our Special Collection for the Pipe Repair. Your response to my appeal was so generous that it “blew my mind”! We have collected $9,700 so far and I have heard from few others that they will bring some money next Sunday. If you do, please, write on the envelope or on the Memo of your check: Pipe Repair.
On top of this great news, I also need to mention and thank the St. Anthony Senior’s Group who pledged to contribute $4,000 for the repair of our pipe. With all these tremendously generous contributions in these difficult days of inflation in our country, we can solve our financial problems in just one weekend. What wonderful and exemplary Stewardship! Thank You all so very much! This type of cooperation and support brings joy to my heart as a priest and as your pastor.
Other words of gratitude go to Esther Quement who spearheads our Oak Tree Project. I appreciate her willingness and her energy to be involved in this project. For many years you have heard in general about the Oak Tree Project but not many things were accomplished. As you might have noticed, we are really trying to make this beautiful area come to life. For things to happen, your “buying into our vision” (as Esther said it) is of great importance. As announced, we will soon be offering engraved plaques that can be purchased and those plaques will be placed on boulders in the surrounding area of the Oak Tree. Some of you were immediately interested, so please, be patient and wait for more information to follow.
Last words of gratitude go to the winner of our 50/50 Raffle, Karen Pelosi. Everybody knows this lovely lady who lives in Morgan Hill but still comes to our church from time to time. Karen was so gracious that after getting the winning ticket she donated it all back to our parish. What a wonderful model of stewardship given to all of us by Karen, I want to thank her on behalf of the whole St. Anthony Parish community.
In this ecstatic spirit I come to an end with another appeal: Please, come back to St. Anthony! It’s time for us to return home and stay connected like the prodigal son from the parable we heard last Sunday. It is that connection to each other that will make a difference in our church.
Blessings,
Fr. Tad
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