Dear Parishioners,

      Thank you for the warm welcome to Fr. Chris and I last weekend. This weekend you will get the opportunity to meet Fr. Staley as he has returned safely from World Youth Day.

       One thing that both Fr. Chris and I noticed over the weekend was the big crowds at all the masses and the joyful participation in the masses. Thank you for that! We can already see the faith is clearly alive in our parishes.

      Thank you as well to all who came out to the festival at St. Francis last Sunday. From all accounts it was a wonderful experience and a great success.

      As we all get acclimated to this new situation, I’d like to mention another change that will be taking place in the next few weeks.  For a number of reasons, we will be combining bulletins. We are hoping that this will help us to better connect our great parishes, making us all aware of what is happening in our local larger Catholic community. We will still have parish specific information published each week, but to be clear, I would like to invite all of you to take advantage of all of the faith and fellowship opportunities that each of our communities offer.

      Finally, I would like to ask all of you to keep our school children and their families and our teachers and faculty members in your prayers as school at St. Charles Borromeo and the St. Peter Early Learning Center and at many other places begins this week.

Have a blessed week!   

Fr. Jim Theby