Thank you for supporting our Social Justice Ministry

On behalf of the parish Social Justice Ministry and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, thank you to the members of our parish family who extended the generous compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ to our less-fortunate brothers and sisters during this Christmas season! We have been inspired and humbled at the ways our faith community has responded to multiple causes this Christmas. 

For the Adopt-a-Family project:

• Volunteers with our Saint Vincent de Paul Society contacted hundreds of families with children to get their wishlists for Christmas gifts.
• Parishioner and friends in our community purchased and wrapped the gifts for 96 families. Each grade in our parish school adopted two more families each – in many cases they chose the families with 5 or more children!
• The Knights of Columbus and Catholic Daughters of America adopted families through significant cash donations.
• Volunteers organized all of these activities and bought and wrapped gifts using cash donations. Then they sorted, loaded, and delivered the gifts to each family’s doorstep.
• This was a big effort made possible by even bigger hearts filled with the Holy Spirit! In total, we gave more than 1,000 Christmas gifts to 115 adopted families this Christmas, as well as an additional $4,050 in gift cards to 78 children!

And that’s not all! Many of our parishioners donated unwrapped toys or cash for the Christmas Toy Drive. Thanks to their generosity, we delivered 7 large bins of gifts and several hundred dollars of gift cards to needy children at the Christian Community Service Center.

To provide the elderly and home-bound some Christmas cheer, our parishioners with a heart for pastoral care contacted 9 assisted-care facilities in our area and arranged to deliver "spiritual bouquets" to their residents. Each resident received a bundle of goodies that included:

• Hand-made cards from the students of our parish school with messages of love, hope, and faith.
• Christmas greeting cards, prayer cards, meditation cards, candies, and other treats from our parishioners.
• Rosary beads and a guide to praying the Rosary for the Catholic residents.
• Altogether, we gave spiritual bouquets to more than 870 of our elderly and home-bound brothers and sisters!

My friends, this is the Holy Spirit working through us as a faith community in the Body of Christ! It has been inspiring to see so many in our parish answer the Lord’s call to generous service. Your compassion stands out especially as we come to the end of this difficult year in which the pandemic has brought illness and death, economic strain and unemployment, and debilitating isolation.

I know that many of you wanted to participate, but for various reasons, could not. I assure you, there will be plenty of opportunities to minister to the Lord by serving our less fortunate brothers and sisters.

In the meantime, let us continue to be open to our call to service, marvel as the Holy Spirit blesses our efforts, and pray for the day when the Lord says to us: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)

With gratitude,

Deacon Lu Hill