State of the Parish

April 5th & 6th, 2008

They had walked all morning - seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. As they walked, the Risen Lord was with them and helped them see that the pain and uncertainty was part of the process. And then he made his presence known so profoundly that there was no question that it really was Jesus, their Lord and God. But they didn't fall on their knees in prayer. They didn't set up a shrine. They retraced the seven miles they had just traveled so they could be with the people who shared their hope and belief in Jesus. They needed to share with that community of believers their experience of Jesus, risen from the dead and alive right here in their midst. The experience of the risen Lord turned the disciples into a community that shared everything, joy and life, hardship and death, work and play and prayer. They became the church.

St. Vivian parish is the direct descendent of that first Christian community. And I believe we are doing a pretty good job of being faithful to their legacy. As for sharing joy and life, since April of last year, in addition to the countless volley ball, basket ball, baseball, softball, and football games played, both youth and adult, also the track meets, the parish picnic, parish campout, guys night out, bridge groups, and social activities through Free Spirits, scouting and youth ministry, we have celebrated 12 marriages, 35 baptisms, 50 first Communions, and 44 Confirmations. We have also held 33 funerals and prayed with many more families who have lost loved ones this past year. Our St. Vincent de Paul Society has helped 331 individuals and logged 1,977 hours in service to the poor of our area. Through our twinning effort, we have also supported and helped the people of St. Maria Goretti, our sister parish in New Orleans, reconstruct their parish and their lives in the aftermath of the hurricane by sending 28 volunteers and 30 boxes of school supplies. Our Athletic Boosters also sent $1000 to help restart their CYO sports programs. We continue to provide holiday food baskets to the poor in our area and our school children assembled and distributed 215 Easter baskets to needy children. You can read more about their efforts on the front page of the Catholic Telegraph. We have also helped 6 parish youth to deepen their faith by scholarships given to attend special retreats or mission trips to serve the needy. These are just some of the highlights of the joy and life, hardship and death we have shared as a parish community.

Standing out among our undertakings as a parish this past year was the Grateful Believers initiative. Over 600 parishioners have responded representing more than 450 families, all pledging prayerful support to our parish. More than 36,000 hours of service were pledged to our parish. And of those who made financial pledges, there was an average 15% increase in their pledges. Our Ministry Fair generated 209 new offers to engage in one of our parish ministries or activities. We can safely conclude that Grateful Believers has been a great success, and because it is a program intend to repeat year after year, I believe we have only seen the beginning of its benefit to our parish.

Whenever you change something that's been done a certain way for many years, there's bound to be some confusion. Grateful believers has been no exception to this. As I communicated in the Easter bulletin, about 20% of parishioners who pledged last year, didn't pledge this year. When the parish leadership and I chose the Grateful Believer program is was because of its expanded vision of stewardship and its equal emphasis on time, talent and treasure. However, for 20% of us, something went wrong. The new Covenant letter which replaced the yellow stewardship cards may have confused some people. They may still be waiting for the yellow card to arrive. It may be that some couldn't make a commitment in all four areas, prayer, time, talent and treasure, so they didn't turn in the letter. And maybe having to make a commitment in all four areas was just too overwhelming a prospect at that time. Whatever the problem, 1 out of 5 who pledged last year not pledging this year is disappointing and unacceptable. We are now in the process of setting our budget for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, and we need every financial pledge we can get in order to plan as accurately as possible for the future. If you haven't turned in a covenant letter, you will be or already have been contacted about this situation. Please give us as accurate an estimate as your situation allows of what your 2008 contribution will be. We have many plans for the upcoming year, and we will need the help of all our parishioners to achieve them.

We all want to think of St. Vivian as a stable community that will be here for a long time to come. We've been here for 60 years, and we hope to be here for at least 60 more. Last year we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church. That tells you something about the age of our buildings, and in some respects they are showing their age. If we are going to be here for a while, then we had better get the buildings ready to face the next 60 years. Already in the works is the replacement of our sound system here in church. If you can hear me now, that may literally change at any second. We hope to have a contractor selected very soon and the work should be done by the time school opens in the fall - at least that's my hope and prayer. The second project in the works is the securing of the facility so that our school can be locked to prevent the entrance of unauthorized persons during the school day. This too should be completed by the beginning of the new school year. The Worship Commission is working to add hand railings here in the sanctuary of the church so that the steps will be more safe and accessible for all our ministers.

Those are things already happening. There are other things that need to happen and these make up Fr. Paul's Wish List. One of the first things on my Wish List is to further refine our financial plan for the parish. We seem to be doing well for the moment and that's good.  But a need that keeps surfacing from the school and the parish financial leaders is the need for a Development Director to manage and build up Grateful Believers and other development initiatives, and to improve communications within the parish and with the parish and the greater community, such as with the news media. The addition of a Development Director should helps us be more visible in the community, and help us respond more quickly to changing times. This is a position that, within a few years of its inception, should pay for itself. The need now is to gather the funding to pay for those initial years.

Another thing on Father's wish list is to do some necessary maintenance on our aging buildings. The roof in the rectory leaks every time we get a significant rain. The plaster in the living room is testimony to the need to replace the roof as soon as possible. We are also planning some needed work on our heating system. If you remember the Sundays in the late fall when the Church had no heat, you can see why this is necessary. There are other maintenance items that are less critical but still needed. Let me call your attention to the carpeting here in the sanctuary. If you can remember when mauve as a decorating color went out of fashion, you have some idea of how old the carpeting is. Here's a hint, mauve was lampooned by the 1988 movie Beetlejuice.

Did you know that our church bells are housed in an ancient 486 computer, and that the computer is the newest part of the system? The bells took up residence there when the original controls gave up the ghost at least 9 year ago. It really was a masterstroke of computer engineering to keep the bells sounding at all, but in the transition, we've lost the ability to control the bells. We cannot peel the bells to celebrate weddings, baptisms, first Communions, Confirmations or the 50th Anniversary of the Church. We cannot toll the bells to mark the passing of our parishioners. Also, stop and listen to our bells when you are in the parking lot. They sound like recorded bells being played through bad speakers. Finneytown used to be able to hear what was going on at St. Vivian. In a sense, St. Vivian has lost part of its voice and we aren't heard in the community like we once were.

Bells and carpeting are not essentials. In fact, they are only examples to illustrate a point. We could very easily get by just as we are. However, I have heard many comments on how our congregation is shrinking and how we should turn that trend around. If we look and sound like we are outdated and run down we make the statement that St. Vivian is on the way out. That's not the attitude we want to take nor is it the impression we want to give. If we're going to be around for 60 more years, then it's time to do some updating and fixing up.

Don't get excited, I won't spend the well dry. I'm just too German for that. The good news in all of this is that I believe we can accomplish the needed improvements without seriously depleting our reserves. Because of the generosity of you, the people of St. Vivian, and the wise and frugal management of parish funds by our business manager, Temporal Affairs Commission and Parish Pastoral Council, we can fix what needs to be fixed and update what needs to be updated without breaking the bank. In any case, we won't be breaking the bank, no matter what.

The downturn in the economy has made it more difficult for people to afford Catholic School education for their children. We presently have a Tuition Assistance Fund that helps parishioners, but the monies we can put in it each year are meager. My wish list includes developing ways to get more money into our Tuition Assistance fund.

Another item on my wish list is one that I keep putting there year after year. I continue to search for strategies and methods that will help our young people embrace the faith and therefore remain connected to the Church. I have already found what I believe are two key elements. These are encouraging young people to get active in ministry, and helping them build relationships and thereby become real members in the community. I have found some success with these already but in a one-on-one setting. I would like to explore ways to make them happen on a broader scale. A third is a possibility that I am just beginning to explore is providing experiences that help youth explore their personal connections to faith. I, Mr. McMannus our Liturgy and Music Director and some of our Junior High teachers are already working on this.

I have heard the call from many quarters that our Catholic people are eager to learn more about our worship and why we do what we do at Mass. Our Education Commission and our Worship Commission are working together to formulate a way of helping us all better understand the Mass and how we can spiritually engage in it more fully. You will hear more about this initiative in the fall. The item on my wish list is that we might expand this initiative to include the other sacraments.

The state of our ministries at our Sunday Masses still gives me great concern. Our call last year at this time for more ministers was a success but lasted for about 2 months. Then the situation returned to what it had been, namely ministers who didn't show up and didn't find subs. Now perhaps one of the four Mass on a given weekend has all the ministers present who were assigned. At the other three, the needed substitutes are being enlisted at the last minute, for example, Mass being delayed because we wait for the altar server who was recruited at the last minute to suit up, and Eucharistic distributors being recruited at Communion time. Besides the lack of ministers, there is often a lack of persons to fill the pews. Often there is at least one Mass on any Sunday morning at which members of the congregation can find no one near enough to exchange the sign of peace with without needing to leave their pew. It's difficult to feel and worship like you are in community when there's no one around you. Perhaps a Development Director might help us recruit more parishioners. However, the trend toward smaller congregations is felt by all the parishes in this area. The surrounding parishes are already down to 3 Masses each weekend. Our present situation is that we are incapable of providing sufficient lay ministers and our ability to worship well is suffering because of the few number of people at a given Mass. It seems we are telling ourselves it is time to move from 4 to 3 Masses on a weekend.

When the disciples hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the others how they had met the risen Lord, they had no idea where it would all lead or what would be required of them. But it seems sure that they knew two things, that their experience of the risen Lord would change everything, and that they wanted to face this new situation with that group of people who could understand their experience. I believe that we understand that our situation demands some changes, and I pray that we care enough about each other that we all decided we want to face the future with this group of people. If we continue to believe in the Lord and in each other, St. Vivian Parish will be here for another 60 years.