Special thanks to Fr. Harry for all he has done for us for the past 6 months. God really brought him to us in a time when we need help. May the Lord bless him
We need to send him to Hawaii and some place for rest. We have to wait until the pandemic is over. For now, I have asked him to take a week off and go visit his friends. The parish will cover his expenses – gas, food etc. This is the least we can do at the time to thank him for his wonderful ministry in our community.
Fr. Harry enjoys being on the road and helping out in different parishes. Like all of us, the pandemic disrupted his plans for the year. He mentioned to me how sometimes he missed being on the road.
Moving forward, I won’t want to tie him down here. I want him to be free to help out in other parishes and in our community when he can and he is here. This week he’ll be in Oliver to continue to advance God’s Kingdom there.
I am now organizing the Mass in a way that I’ll be able to say the weekend Masses by myself when I’m alone.
We have had some retired priests and active priest come to help us. It costs our parishes about $1,000 every month to pay for the priests who come to help and to cover their mileage. In fact, it should be costing us about $1,500. Fr. Harry and the other priests have been generous to us.
Since we do not know how long this pandemic will last, we have to adopt a sustainable approach. This will entail some sacrifice on our part as I reorganize the Masses to what I can handle. A rescheduling is also important at this time so that our volunteers do not experience a burn out. We need over a hundred volunteers for all the weekend Masses.
To help me and help one another, I ask that you accept our present situation with a Christian spirit, with love in our heart for God and neighbor.
The new Mass schedule will affect mostly those who attend 9am Mass at St. Ann and those who attend 11am Mass at St. John Vianney. We will try it out first this weekend and see how it works. That will determine the way forward for us.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.