Dear Folks:
Items for this week:
**Saint Ambrose Catholic School: This weekend we celebrate the beginning of another school year with the annual, “Backpack Blessing,” this Sunday at the 11:00 a.m. Mass. All of the children have been invited to come to this Mass with their backpacks and receive a special blessing as another school year starts. Welcome back administration, teachers, students, families, volunteers, workers!!! I wish to thank Izet and Theresa who have done a wonderful job cleaning and preparing the school; it looks great thanks to them! I wish to thank all those who have done updates and upgrades to the school this summer—air-conditioning, painting, classroom updating. This parish is so blessed to have a grade school attached to it. Having a Catholic grade school shows another facet of the face of Christ and this is priceless. Let us pray for a calm, peaceful, enjoyable, faithful, nurturing, educational, fun school year!!!! Again, welcome back everyone; it gets way too quiet around here during the summer and it is so nice to have the joyful noise of a school back!!!!
I do want to say something about the Mass schedule for the school. Brothers and sisters, right now, Saint Ambrose will go back to one school Mass per week. This weekly Mass will be on Friday’s. The reason for this:
a). There is one Priest here and with the 6:30 a.m. Mass, Confessions each weekday from 11:15 a.m.—11:45 a.m., Mass at noon and all of the funerals at St. Ambrose, adding another Mass is just not possible right now. However, as soon as St. Ambrose gets another Priest, I promise you the parish will go back to having a daily Mass for the children to begin the school day. Please be patient on this! Again, I’m not happy about doing this; I truly believe that having a daily Mass for the school community helps to start a good day. This suspension of this daily Mass is temporary.
**Holy Day: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Normally, this would be a, “Holy Day of Obligation,” but, with it falling on a Monday this year, the obligation to attend Mass is suspended. However, the faithful are encouraged to honor Mary’s Assumption into Heaven by going to Mass. There will be 2 Masses on this day: 6:30 a.m. and 12 noon with confessions from 11:15 a.m.—11:45 a.m.
**Saturday Evening Mass: As I mentioned in last weekend’s bulletin column, I am gathering thoughts on moving the Saturday afternoon Mass from 5:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Why do this? There are 2 reasons:
1). So that if people have restaurant reservations, they can get to their restaurants earlier and that is a good thing! The Hill is busy on Saturday nights and having Mass 1/2 hour earlier allows reservations to be made earlier before the Saturday evening rush!
2). During the winter, with the days getting shorter, having the Mass at 4:30 p.m. allows for more daylight before getting home after Mass.
Please let Deacon Joe and/or me know what you think about this possible change. This would not happen until the first weekend in Advent, November 27th, if at all!
**Mass Cancellation: On Sunday, September 4th, the 11:00 a.m. will be canceled for that Sunday only. This is to accommodate the annual bike race through the Hill. This is only for one Sunday, September 4th, again to help the bike race get set up in front of St. Ambrose Church.
**Kneeling for Holy Communion at Mass: Brothers and sisters, I have noticed that some people like to kneel when receiving Holy Communion at Mass; others receive Jesus by bowing and standing before the person/clergyman distributing Holy Communion. Both ways are valid and honorable. However, to help those who would like to kneel to receive Holy Communion I am having 2 kneeler pads made for the Communion Rail so that people who want to kneel to receive Jesus will be able to do so. This is not mandatory!!! It’s just giving another way to receive Jesus. Deacon Joe and I will stand behind the Communion Rail to distribute the Eucharist; if people want to bow and stand before us to receive that is fine; and if they want to kneel on a kneeling pad to receive Jesus, we will accommodate that as well. This will start as soon as we get the kneeling pads.
**Extreme Water Bill: Last weekend I mentioned a very high water bill that the parish received last fiscal year that really hurt the bottom line; that bill for that period of billing was at $20,000.00, way higher than normal. A parishioner approached me about wanting to help see if this billing was accurate or not. I am grateful for his help. I’m hoping some favored resolution on behalf of the parish can happen. I will let you know!
Have a good week!
Fr. Jack