Dear Friends,

This is the Fourth Sunday of Lent, traditionally called Laetare Sunday. It received its name from the Latin, meaning “rejoice.” The Sunday is considered a day of relaxation from normal Lenten rigors; a day of hope with Easter at last within sight. The more pronounced your Lenten observances, the more this day is a welcome relief. On a larger scale, the same, of course is true about Easter itself. I hope and pray that all of you are experiencing the blessings of the Lord during this time of prayer, fasting, deprivations and almsgiving. The Holy Day of the Resurrection will, on many levels, be a time of great rejoicing for you.

I am very pleased to announce that I have been able to form a new Pastoral Council. Because there was no council in existence when I arrived, I invited people to be members, based on counsel from staff and other parishioners. I sought to make the Council representative of the various demographics at OLMC.

The new Council Members are: Carey Anthony, Mike Arnold, Chris Broglia, Dominic Conn, David Crowell, Monica Donnellan, Kristina Engelbert, Marian Enriquez, Michael Pabst, Tim States and Steve Strickbine.

This letter is being published just prior to the meeting when we will elect the Council Oícers. I will announce those oícers in my next letter. My hope for the Council is to benefit from their wisdom on how best to strengthen and enrich the pastoral life of the parish. We have many needs, from Youth Ministry to support for married couples, evangelization and the deepening of our prayer life (especially Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament). We will be spending our next couple of meetings seeking to identify and prioritize those needs and developing a plan on how to address them. Please keep us in your prayers.

Interested parishioners are always welcome to be non-voting, observers of the meetings, which will take place on the 4th Wednesday of the month, August-June. Parishioners are also welcome to submit items to be considered for the agenda (more information on how to do that will also be forthcoming). The Minutes from each meeting will be posted in a binder in the front oíce for any parishioner who wishes to review them.

Please pray that we can hear the Lord clearly, conduct our deliberations in the Light of the Holy Spirit and be effective in implementing His Will for OLMC.

There have been a couple of other staff changes. Ashley Hall, who served as our Stewardship Director has taken a position with the Catholic Community Foundation. That is clearly our loss and their benefit. We thank Ashley for the excellent job she did for us here and wish her success with CCF. You will still see her and her husband and 4 daughters at the Church and school. We also welcome Jenn Chavez, who will be taking on a great portion of Ashley’s responsibilities, especially organizing the Gala, the Festival and other big events. We are very grateful to have someone like Jenn sharing her gifts with our parish.

May God bless you and your family, Fr Charlie Goraieb

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