From the Pastor’s Desk January 26, 2014 Once upon a time, milk was twenty -five cents, bread was a dime and gasoline was less than thirty cents a gallon. Everybody paid cash for almost everything and credit cards did not exist. Life was a lot less complicated than it is today and somehow we all managed to survive. One of the recipients of our cash was the Sunday offertory basket that was passed at Mass. Because so many people went to church, there was always enough money to run the parish, run the school and take care of all the bills. Today everything is so much more expensive. Bread, milk and gasoline have increased by more than 1000%; credit has become the coin of the realm and, sadly, Sunday has become just another day for so many people. Running a parish like St. Catherine of Siena has also become a much more expensive enterprise than ever before. And this is the major reason why we are launching an Increased Offertory Campaign at this time. St. Catherine of Siena Parish and School is a $4.25 million enterprise. While our mission is all about God, faith, spiritual development and passing on our faith to our children, our parish/school enterprise needs to be run in an effective business like way. Among other things, this means that our Parish Finance Council and our parish business manager need to be on top of our overall financial needs and be about the task of planning carefully for the future to insure that our parish remains financially solvent and able to accomplish our mission. Our Increased Offertory Campaign comes about, therefore, as a result of their stewardship of our finances and their considered advice. Over the past several years, our weekly offertory donations have not been keeping pace with our needs and our desire to keep St. Catherine of Siena in the greatest shape possible. By launching an Increased Offertory Campaign now, it is our hope that everyone in the parish will take the time to prayerfully consider what each of us is able to do to increase our weekly or monthly donation. We are also hoping that many more parishioners will initiate a program of electronic giving. As many of us already know, this modern way of taking care of our financial responsibilities has many advantages. We can do it from the privacy and quiet of home; we can insure that our donations are made on a consistent basis and we can be sure that all of our tax deductible donations are properly accounted for. And, needless to say, we hope that everyone (not using electronic giving) will use the weekly envelopes. This past week information was mailed to all the families and individuals in our parish directory about the Increased Offertory Appeal. The return envelope invites us to identify a level of giving that we are committing to maintaining from now on. The purpose of this commitment is to enable us to plan properly for the future. Budgeting, as we all know, can be a very inexact science so the commitments that we receive will help us better approximate our future income. Needless to say, we are deeply grateful for the wonderful way that so many parishioners already support our parish. Mindful of the challenges in our present economy, our Increased Offertory Appeal is really only aimed at parishioners who are able to contribute more on a week to week basis. If things are tight, please keep on doing what you are able to do. For the rest of us, we simply ask that you review your regular offertory donation and increase it, if possible, in a way that will help us get to where we need to be. Good stewardship of our time, talent and treasure is what this is all about. If we all do the best that we can do, we know that God will do the rest. God Bless! Msgr. Paul
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:05:07 +0000
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