Pastor Update

Dear Parishioners,

The readings of the weekend focus on marriage. One of the most beautiful things I enjoy seeing is very elderly
couples walking together holding their hands. Definitely it is not that easy to have a very long married life. It
needs God’s blessings and a lot of sacrifice. When I bless the couples on their milestone anniversaries I normally
say that your life is your message. According to a statistic I read a few years back, the divorce rate in our country
is 43%. We have to try our best to keep our families safe from all kinds of damage. Definitely keeping our Lord
as the center of our family is very important to achieve that goal. I normally bring this in the wedding homilies. A
former Judges was asked to give a piece of advice to a newly married couple. He said; I have only one thing to
say. Don’t ever try to make your home a court room, rather make it a confessional. In the courtroom everyone
tries to say I am right and you are wrong. In the confessional everyone says I am sorry, my mistake. If you can
practice this, you will be successful in your married life. This is very practical and let us keep that in our mind as
we meditate up on this topic today. Let us also pray for all the families going through tough times in their relationships.

I would also like to answer one more important question that comes from many people these days.

What about the festivals in our parishes?

This question was asked by many and we don’t have a clear answer to all the questions. Many of the answers are evolving as we have a few more meetings to go to figure out the details. Yes, we have decided to have one festival in our NW parishes. We know that St. Louis had one in the past and we didn’t have enough volunteers to run it and had to cancel last year. The only remaining one was St. Rita festival. We will continue to have a festival at St. Rita’s. We may have a new name. But as part of the collaboration there are people from all the parishes also ready to volunteer. So, we will have more discussions to make it more collaborative by figuring out certain percentage of the income being shared by all the parishes in the cluster on the basis of the number of volunteers from those parishes etc. Again, we haven’t figured it out. They are being discussed. When we have clarity, we will let you know.

I am happy to see the collaboration in all the other events as well. Volunteers from the other parishes in cluster had already stepped in to help last year at St. Rita festival. We could see that with Chicken Dinner at St. Louis too. Those are the great opportunities for us to come together as one community and have fun. Going forward I would like to see at least one more social event that brings all communities together. We will plan them in the future.

Before winding up let me express my gratitude to all of our staff members and leaders for making the dream of one office location a reality for us. It makes it much easier for all of us to be more productive in our daily work. I am sure that everyone understands the importance of this move and help us with the inconvenience it might bring to a few of our people.

Peace,

Fr. Thomas Vathappallil
Pastor
Pastor NW parishes of Racine