Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Veni, Sancte Spiritus!
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle
in them the fire of your love!
Today we finally celebrate the Feast of Pentecost which
brings the Easter season to a close. As you probably know, Easter
is the greatest feast day of the Church: the celebration of the
resurrection of our Lord, his victory over sin and death, and his
promise to make us victorious as well and raise us one day. In
some ways, Pentecost would be the second greatest feast day
and Christmas would be third. But another way to look at it would
see the 50 days of the Easter season as one big celebration, and
so Easter-Ascension-Pentecost would be the greatest feast day,
and Christmas would be second. No matter how you look at it, the
sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is an important and
necessary celebration in the Church. We need to ask our Lord to
help us be more open to receiving the Holy Spirit in our lives, and
ask the same for our parish, our diocese and our Church.
We have currently raised $45,194 toward the goal of
$50,000 for a second parish school activity bus. This leaves us
with $4,806 that we still hope to raise. Thank you to all who have
supported this dream of parish and school transportation for the
upcoming fall! I would especially like to thank Neal Wright for his
very generous contribution of $50,000 which covered the cost of
an entire bus and enabled us to raise funds for a second bus.
Currently, Epiphany School has two very old buses from 2001 and
2002 which are used for field trips and sporting events, which are
a challenge to keep in good operating condition. Eventually, of
course, they will need to be replaced, but the priority for these two
buses this year will be to pick up and drop off students for the
school day.
I would also like to thank the generosity of those who
have contributed to the Help Joshua Fund. As of this writing,
$17,353 has been raised. If you would like to write a check to
contribute, please make it out to Precious Blood Church and in the
memo line print: Joshua Fund. There is a committee of three
parishioners which oversees any reimbursements for medical
expenses or any expenses related to Joshua’s medical condition.
As we get precise figures of expenses (most bills have not come
in yet from Joshua’s nearly one-month stay at Children’s Hospital
of Philadelphia) I will keep you updated as to the reimbursements
that the committee approves.
As I write this (on June 4th), we are looking forward to
the graduation of our eighth graders from Epiphany School.
Congratulations to them and their families, and we wish them all
the best – especially that they stay close to God – as they embark
on the next stage of their lives in high school. June 12th will be the
last day of school for our other students at Epiphany School. We
hope all of our children on summer vacation and their families will
have a restful and profitable time.
A Scholarship Committee (for graduating high school
seniors) will convene soon and the recipients of the scholarships
will be announced the first weekend of July, which is when we will
celebrate the Feast of the Precious Blood.
We look forward to celebrating the dedicated service
given by our adult volunteers this past year at our upcoming
beach-themed dinner on Saturday, June 15, from 6:30 – 8:30 PM
at Epiphany School gym. Please RSVP to the office if you can
come!
For our prison ministry we are looking for anyone who is
willing to lead a Bible study for the inmates at Coffeewood
Correctional Center on Wednesday evenings. Please contact the
office if you can do this.
Also, if you would like to help out with the Corpus Christi
procession on June 23, please contact the office.
Vacation Bible Camp is coming in July. It will begin on
Sunday, July 21 (from 5:30 to 8:30 PM) and continue till Thursday,
July 25. Under the direction of Karen Kulivan and Whitney
Edwards, again this year, the children will be able to participate in:
Totally Catholic: ROAR! Life is Wild, God is Good! See below for
upcoming details and volunteering opportunities.
God bless,
Fr. Kevin
