Gala
Our annual Gala is next Saturday, February 23 at Concord Banquets in Kildeer. This year we are sailing on the S.S. Holy Family for a cruise that will be fun-filled and exciting. Our annual Gala is our biggest fun and fundraising event. My hope has been that our Gala unites the various communities and ministries that constitute Holy Family Catholic Community.
You can help make this year’s Gala our most successful yet. You may have seen me holding up 5 fingers on one hand and 2 on the other. These numbers represent my two biggest goals, namely 500 people to attend the Gala and $200,000 raised to benefit and strengthen our very ambitious mission, which reaches far beyond our campus and forms us from our youngest members all the way through to our eldest in the ways of faith.
You can help by attending, by bringing loved ones and friends with you to catch our vibrant spirit, by donating auction items, and encouraging friends and family members who can’t attend to pledge funds for certain auction items that will supplement your resources, thus increasing your chances of winning. In other words, syndicate your bidding and bid on items with the help of those who cannot attend.
See the back cover of this bulletin for more details.
You may be aware of the ongoing Renew My Church initiative that Cardinal Cupich has instituted which continues to be carried out in our Archdiocese. This important initiative is something that EVERY parish is asked to be a part of. There are two basic aspects to Renew My Church: ORGANIZATIONAL renewal and SPIRITUAL renewal. Many parishes will be asked to make significant organizational and even physical structural changes and consolidations, but we are all asked to enter into a spiritual renewal. This includes bold initiatives of creating disciples, engaging more people in active participation in our faith, increased awareness of and use of resources and more.
Every parish in the Archdiocese is a part of a grouping and we have one partner in our grouping: St. Anne in Barrington. Most groupings are composed of 3-5 parishes. We are not being asked to enter into any ORGANIZATIONAL renewal or change such as combining parishes, schools or closing any buildings or facilities. Furthermore, each grouping is asked to activate their partnerships at a certain time and we have no timeline for such activation yet. Parishes undergoing significant ORGANIZATIONAL changes are the first to be activated.
This organizational and spiritual renewal process is based on many factors such as finances, facilities and more. One of them is the number of priests who serve parishes. In our area we are fortunate to have the number of priests currently serving, but statistics and larger archdiocesan need will certainly change that in the near future. This change does not mean that we will have one pastor for both parishes but may mean sharing priests as we already do, particularly for daily morning and evening Mass and Reconciliation. This decline in the number and increase in the age of our priests does however mandate that we begin to evaluate the number of Masses, Reconciliation, devotional and other liturgical experiences that we share, not only with St. Anne but St. Theresa as well.
I believe that being good stewards invites us to look at such factors, particularly daily Mass now, and as a more progressive parish that we are ahead of the curve in anticipation of sacramental needs in the future, all with a realistic awareness of the number of priests and the overall sacramental demands. For example the number of funerals here at Holy Family has nearly tripled in my 10 years with you, as have the number of anointings and pastoral care visits. We number over 100 baptisms per year and weddings continue to increase slightly as well.
The average age of priests in the Archdiocese is 63. Retirement age is 70 and the number of priests retiring each year often triples the number being ordained. In addition, not all priests are able or willing to be pastors, which is the greatest need for local parish clergy leadership. We currently have 345 parishes in the Archdiocese and the number of Religious Order priests (such as Friar Johnpaul) is both aging and decreasing even more rapidly.
With that said, we will continue to evaluate daily evening Mass and Reconciliation times and will share with you changes that are coming. Thank you for embracing a spirit of Renewal that invites us to look forward, to share our resources and to build church and community in new more collaborative ways.