by Fr. Charlie Goraieb  |  06/19/2022  |  Weekly Reflection

Dear Friends,

Miguel Nuñez, our new Youth Minister, has settled in and is making plans to restart a youth ministry here at OLMC. We will be using the Life Teen/Edge models for both high school and junior high students. Our Sunday 5:00pm Mass will be the liturgical focus for the high schoolers, so those who attend that Mass can expect the music to be a little more upbeat and (hopefully) attractive to the teens.

To be successful in evangelizing and discipling our young people, Miguel will need several volunteers for the core teams, preparing meals, helping with logistics, etc. If you want to be a part of this outreach to the youth of our parish, please contact Miguel at miguel@olmctempe.com.

Please mark your calendar for Friday night, July 1st when we will host The Well. They are a group of young Catholics who go to different parishes, leading an evening of praise and worship, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a short talk and more prayer. There will also be an opportunity for confessions that night. Don’t miss this blessing that is coming to our parish.

Today, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Catholic Church in the U.S. begins the 3-year Eucharistic Revival. The goal is to help all Catholics recover and deepen their faith in the Holy Eucharist as the source of our hope and spiritual strength. This initiative is especially important when we consider that 70% of American Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. My brothers and sisters, this is not just a minor sociological problem; a failure to grasp the true meaning of the Eucharist is to put into question the very existence of our Church. Over the next three years, there will be parish, diocesan and national efforts and events to help Catholics grasp more deeply the great treasure of the Eucharist, with a special emphasis on fostering more opportunities for us to adore the Lord in His Eucharistic Presence.

Shortly after arriving at OLMC last July, I heard the Lord in prayer asking that an Adoration Chapel be built at our parish. Within a few weeks, different parishioners approached me independently to tell me of their dream for a chapel. A few others who also got word of the conversations, offered funds to help get things going. After consulting with Bishop Olmsted and receiving both his permission and a ringing endorsement, I gathered a small group to meet with Bruce Scott, a parishioner and architect, to begin to concretize plans for the chapel.

The committee has met several times and we are making great progress towards the renderings and the details. As anyone involved in the building process knows, there are many steps to be taken before ground can be broken and construction begun. So, at this time I am unable to give you great detail or even the budget for the chapel. But we do have a basic floor plan (below) that will help you to visualize the basic idea. In a couple of months, hopefully I will have more details to share with you.

The location will be in the current grassy area near the north east entrance to the Church (in front of the statue of the Good Shepherd). It will tie into the north east side of the Church and north side of the sacristy building. Here is a basic floor plan.

May God bless you and your family, Fr Charlie Goraieb

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