Dear Brothers and Sisters of St. Andrew the Apostle,

For all parish news and events, please see our bulletin or visit our parish website. Here is a selection of upcoming events:

• Daylight Saving Time begins after midnight tonight! Remember to move your clocks back an hour so you don't arrive an hour early for Sunday Mass tomorrow.
• There will be an "Aging in Place" presentation by Catholic medical professionals in the Padre Pio Room at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Sunday, November 2. All those who want to learn more about living at home as they age or those who are looking for information about caring for homebound parents or friends, please join us! More information here.
• The Knights of Columbus are hosting their monthly Pancake Breakfast after the 7:30 AM, 9:00 AM, and 10:30 AM Masses tomorrow. After the 12:30 PM Mass, they will be selling scoops of ice cream!
• Our All Souls Novena of Masses begins tomorrow, Sunday, November 2, and continues for nine more days. You can enroll deceased family members and friends into this novena using the All Souls Novena envelopes located at the entrance of the church. Please return completed novena envelopes in the regular collection basket or in person to the Parish Office. Do not place them in the basket on the altar.
• The St. Andrew's Book Club with Fr. Townsend will cover chapters 4 and 5 of Shane Owens' Return to the Heart next Saturday, November 8, in the Padre Pio Room at 9:45 AM.
• Our next talk in our Sunday Speaker Series is next Sunday, November 9. Liz Schiavone will present the wisdom of four women Doctors of the Church: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and St. Hildegard of Bingen. You can sign up in advance here.
• The next event in our St. Andrew's Concert Series is a performance by Jennifer Pascual, the Music Director at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on Sunday, November 16, at 4:00 PM. Admission is free. Donations are welcome!
• If you have not done so already, please vote in the Virginia elections!

For those who visit St. Andrew's during the week, take note of a logistical change. The double doors by the Holy Family Chapel will be closed on Mondays through Fridays, so the only entrance to the church open on weekdays will be the double doors by the parish office entrance.

On weekends, we will continue our current practice of opening all of the entrances to the church from Saturday morning until the completion of Sunday Masses.

... November begins with the Solemnity of All Saints, which is a celebration of all of the saints in heaven, including those who are not canonized and whose names we may not know. Tomorrow is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, which we know as All Souls Day. That is the day set apart in praying for the souls in Purgatory who are awaiting to be purified that they, too, may enter heaven. We pray for these souls during every Mass, but it is a good practice to pray for them every day, especially those family members who have died.

The Church sets aside the whole month of November to remember the dead. In fact, one can obtain an indulgence for visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead in the Octave of All Saints, which concludes on November 8. The other requirements for an indulgence remain: praying for the intentions of the Pope; going to Confession close to the time of visiting the cemetery (no time is formally set by the Chuch, but I've seen it being from a week to three weeks before or after); worthily receiving Holy Eucharist on the day of the visit for the the intention of obtaining the indulgence; being in the state of grace, and being completely free from attachment to sin. If we fail in this last one - and to be fair, that is usually the case - we will receive a partial indulgence instead of a plenary indulgence. A partial indulgence is when some of the temporal punishment that is coming our way in Purgatory is removed. A plenary indulgence is the complete removal of temporal punishment for the sins we have committed to that point. In the case of praying for the dead, the indulgence is applied to the deceased, and not the person gaining the indulgence, which makes sense. We are praying for the deceased to be released from Purgatory, so the indulgence does them the most good.

To learn more about indulgences, see this article.

... We begin Vocations Awareness Week this Sunday. Next week, seminarian Camden Short, a parishioner of All Saints who is attending John Paul II seminary in Washington, D.C., will speak after all of the Sunday Masses next week.

This is also a good time to remind everyone about the Seminarian Education Endowment, which was originated by two of our parishioners, Laura and Bob Coleman, and helps to defray the cost of supporting each seminarian with education, food, and board, which is nearly $60,000 a year per seminarian (and we have a lot of seminarians in our Diocese!). Please consider donating to the Seminarian Endowment Fund in your year-end giving to help form the Arlington priests of the future!

... Speaking of giving, I am going to take a break from my discussion of tithing this week and pick it up next weekend, November 8 and 9, when I preach and all of the Sunday Masses and make my annual appeal for increased offertory. I know that asking for money to support the parish and her ministries is not a popular topic, but it is an important spiritual one for each of us, and an important financial one for the parish and what we do, so I hope that I can help you to prayerfully consider the importance of the mission of St. Andrew's in your life and in your yearly budget.

Be assured of my prayers for you and your intentions. Please pray for me as well!

In Christ,

Fr. Wagner