Parish Vitality - Previous Reports
November Pastor’s Report
We welcomed our new Archbishop Thomas Zinkula on October 18th. The installation ceremony was wonderful and Archbishop Zinkula offered a good homily as he reflecting on his call to the priesthood and the humble journey which has led him back to his home diocese. We are grateful the Lord has provided us with such a good shepherd.
Earlier this month Jeff Jochum, our Director of Parish finances, offered a brief summary of the parish’s finances at the of the weekends Masses on Oct. 7th and 8th. Additionally, fiscal year end reports were provided for our parishioners to take home and review. As Jeff mentioned, we are staying within budget and ended fiscal year in decent shape. I credit his efforts, those of the finance committee and in fact, all the staff and parishioners at Holy Spirit Parish for their work and contributions. Amidst keeping expenses in line, we were able to complete a lot of “much needed” maintenance projects throughout our three parish campus buildings and grounds. And although we have come along way with the help of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program during COVID, and even more substantially, the negotiated reduction of our parish assessment to Holy Family Catholic School system, we still need to keep our ‘hands to the plow’ if we wish to keep our parish vibrant. We are still lacking a faith formation leader to maintain, develop and promote programs for: O.C.I.A. (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults and Children); Y.A.M. (Young Adult Ministry); F.M.I. (Family Ministry Initiatives)--as well as any new or ongoing parish wide faith enrichment programs and opportunities. And needless to say, we are still in need of additional secretarial help at the parish office. Thus, there still is a lot of work that needs to be done as we move forward—and I am confident that we will get there with the help and prayers of all.
Later this month at the Feast of Christ the King on Nov 26th, we will welcome fully into the parish those who will receive either the Sacraments of the Eucharist and/or Confirmation. We are blessed to have ten candidates this year (we started with twelve but one has dropped out and the other will receive her sacraments at a later date). Also this month we will celebrate the Rite of Acceptance on Nov. 19th for another five catechumens who will be received into the Church at the Easter Vigil on March 30, 2024. Let us keep them all in our prayers in the weeks and months that lie ahead.
Committee Highlight Recaps (with most being a continuation of last months recaps):
Pastoral Council: We did not meet in October
Faith Formation: We reviewed Fr. Steve’s Pastor’s Report and his recaps from the reports from the other committees. We likewise received the Holy Family Board of Education Report to Parish Leadership for September 2023. Jan (Director of Faith Formation) shared that she is working on combined spreadsheets for Religious Ed program from the three parishes. There was some discussion regarding possibly adding adult education for Hispanics. Jan also shared with us the Ministry at Mass initiative which involves a service project to make up survival bags. If members of the Committee hear of any additional service projects to implement, please let Jan know. Fr. Dennis Quint had recently sent us Cathedral and St. Patrick’s faith enrichment programs for the coming months and we will be working to combine these as well as those of Holy Spirit Parish in our promotion of faith formation opportunities.
Parish Life: “Trunk or Treat” event will take place after 6:30 pm Mass on Nov. 1st “and it looks like we will have a good showing of volunteers to hand out candy for the kids. Let’s hope for favorable weather. The “Card Ministry” program is moving closer to completion with the rough draft of cards being approved. In the coming months, we will begin working on offering service opportunities through the INGNITE Program which will be offered during Lent in 2024.
Evangelization: Our College and Military care packages were sent out in mid-October. After completion of viewing Dr. Sri’s program “Who Am I To Judge” and we will begin working on the next steps of our program which involves 1) providing information to parishioners, 2) giving witness (sharing our faith), and 3) meeting those we encounter where they are at with regard to level of faith and belief.
Liturgy: Committee did not meet in October. Upcoming liturgical events in November include --All Saints Day (Nov. 1st), All Soul’s Day “Mass of Remembrance” (Nov. 2), Anointing of the Sick (following the Masses on the weekend of Nov. 11th and 12th, and Rite of Acceptance during the 9:30 Mass on Nov. 19th.
Social Justice:
The committee will be meeting in Nov. to continue their work on the 2nd on the 2nd program. We are hoping to implement this program at the start of the new year.
We are continuing to work on and fulfill our parish vitality goals which are as follows:
1) Service to others (which our 2nd on the 2nd program and summer Religious Education program addressess
2) Sense of Belonging (which includes programs through our Parish Life Committee like our Pictorial Directory, Card Program, and IGNITE program which will we will run again in the beginning of Lent next year. Additionally, will be engaged in outreach programs for our Marshallese and Filipino communities).
3) The Mass—here we are going to put a big push on ministry involvement and training, as well as include Liturgy tidbit informational inserts in the bulletin. Additionally we will be offering a teaching Mass presentation and faith enrichment sessions on the Mass and the Eucharist.
During the month of November, please keep our deceased parishioners, family members and loved ones, and all the faithful departed in our prayers—may eternal rest in heaven be granted to them.
I was able to enjoy a bit of respite as I took some time off near the end of October. I am glad to be back in the swing of things and look forward to the various liturgies and events in November—it looks to be a very busy month in our parish. God’s blessings on our parish. May we continue to build up God’s kingdom on earth so that we can build up His kingdom in heaven.
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Steve
October Pastor’s Report
We had another successful Parish Festival on September 10th and finished a little ahead of last year with regard to fundraising. We are so very grateful for the effort and work of the many volunteers and leaders of the Festival Committee to bring about this community building event and the food was outstanding as usual. Unfortunately, I was suffering with a migraine headache throughout much of the day and was not as involved as I would have like to have been (too much excitement I guess).
October is an exciting month as we welcome our new Archbishop Thomas Zinkula on October 18th as our new shepherd. Our prayers and support are with him as he carries on the good work of his predecessors. Having one of our own installed is a really special and a joyous occasion and we certainly do give thanks to God for blessing us with such a humble yet very wise leader.
We wish to welcome as well, seminarian Liam Dale to our parish community. Liam has been assigned to our parish for continued formation during this school year as a part of St. Pius X seminary program. Liam is a senior at Loras college and is a seminarian for the Diocese of Des Moines. He will only be with us a few hours a week and will be working mostly with Raegan (assisting us with some of parish events and liturgies). We are grateful to have Liam join our parish family during this school year and offer him our support and prayers.
We also were blessed to welcome five new families to our parish these past few weeks and look forward to their being a part of our parish family and their participation at Mass. I am hoping to have a few more register in the coming weeks.
Our Faith Formation program has gotten off to a good start. Our Religious Education Students of the combined Holy Spirit, Cathedral, and St. Patrick program began the school year with a “Teaching Mass” for the students and their parents. Additionally we had 16 students attend our Sacramental Prep program for 1st Reconciliation and 1st Communion. (Our Confirmation program will begin after the 1st of the year.) This year we are also offering a combined youth ministry program with Cathedral, St. Patrick, and Resurrection (offered at the Resurrection church site). Hopefully, this will help fill the void we downtown parishes have been missing these past few years with our youth ministry. And finally, it is with God’s grace that this year we have twelve candidates in our R.C.I.A program who will receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist, and/or Confirmation at the Feast of Christ the King on Nov 26th, and we have an additional five catechumens who are in a separate R.C.I.A program who will be received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. In the past we have had only one or two candidates/catechumens in the program, and so this year we are truly grateful to be blessed with so many.
Our Fall Faith Formation programs have gotten off to a good start. There has been good attendance at our Monday night “Popcorn Faith Formation” with viewing and discussion on the series Chosen. Likewise, we have had good turnouts for both the That Man Is You and Woman of Worth programs. We are still working on more opportunities for faith enrichment for the month of November and during our Advent and Christmas Seasons.
Committee Highlight Recaps:
Parish Life: “Trunk or Treat” event will take place after 6:30 pm Mass on Nov. 1st. “Card Ministry” program to include 1st and 5th year anniversary cards. Also we looking at possibly holding a New Parishioner gathering event sometime in Nov. The Pictorial Directory is still in the works (photos have been submitted). We will be offering service opportunities through the IGNITE Program which will be offered during Lent in 2024.
Evangelization: Our review of Dr. Sri’s program is almost complete and we will begin working on the next steps of our program which involves 1) providing information to parishioners, 2) giving witness (sharing our faith), and 3) meeting those we encounter where they are at with regard to level of faith and belief. Additionally, we will be offering the College and Military care packages which will be sent out in October
Liturgy: Dcn. Dave Roth will be stepping down as Dir of Liturgy and doing the ministry scheduling. Fr. Jeff will assume those responsibilities moving forward. The commissioning of EMs will take place after the weekend Masses on October 15th and 16th and Altar Server training to begin soon and will be ongoing. The upcoming liturgy preparations include the following--All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) and All Soul’s Day “Mass of Remembrance” (Nov. 2). Advent and Christmas decorations.
Social Justice: 2nd on the 2nd Committee is working to implement this new program in the coming months. 2nd on the 2ndinvolves not only a second collection on the second Sunday of each month (with some exceptions) in support of selected charities and organizations but also providing education and volunteer opportunities for some of these selected organizations.
We are continuing to work on and fulfill our parish vitality goals which are as follows:
- Service to others (which our 2nd on the 2nd program and summer Religious Education program addresses)
- Sense of Belonging (which includes programs through our Parish Life Committee like our Pictorial Directory, Card Program, and IGNITE program which will we will run again in the beginning of Lent next year. Additionally, will be engaged in outreach programs for our Marshallese and Filipino communities).
- The Mass—here we are going to put a big push on ministry involvement and training, as well as include Liturgy tidbit informational inserts in the bulletin. Additionally we will be offering a teaching Mass presentation and faith enrichment sessions on the Mass and the Eucharist.
On a sad note, we wish our parish secretary Judy Hoffmann and parish bookkeeper Jane Walker farewell as both have retired recently. We are grateful for their many years of dedication, hard work and great service to our parish. We wish them all the best as they enjoy their much-deserved retirement. That being said we wish to welcome Mathew Drake and Lisa Hoftender to our parish staff. Matthew will take over the bookkeeping, payroll and human resource areas of the parish, and Lisa will be taking over some of the secretary responsibilities and parish bulletin (on a part time basis). We are still looking for a full-time/part-time person to assist with all the other the secretary duties.
Overall, there are a lot things happening this month in our parish—and I again want to thank all of you for helping to make that happen. Know of my prayers for you and ask that you continue to pray for me. May we continue to build up God’s kingdom on earth so that we can build up His kingdom in heaven.
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Steve
September Pastor’s Report
We wish to welcome our new members to the Faith Formation Commission, Ann Kelleher, Karen Roth, and Renee Gorman (also one of our new secretaries). We are glad to have you aboard. Leaving the committee because their terms were up are Kim Scmidt and Lisa Schroeder. We want to thank them both for their awesome service and commitment--especially as we moved on from COVID and the combining of our Commission with St. Pats and the Cathedral.
We would also like to welcome our new members to our Pastoral Council, Becky Seymour, Ben Schroeder, and Brooke Pfeiffer, it is great to have you on board as we build on the mission of our parish family. Leaving our committee because her term has been completed is Sue Dazey. We thank Sue for her work, commitment and dedication these past several years (just a reminder to all, you can be nominated again to serve after you have been off the council for one year.)
We have had a busy spring and summer with various projects around our three church campuses (cement work, fixing of a broken water pipe, the wonderful upkeep up on the landscape at all of our church campuses, the removal several trees at Holy Ghost, the installation of lights for our outdoor stations at HG and the lighting and repairs made to our statues and statue casing along with the general upkeep of the HG Shrine (we get a lot of visitors throughout the week who stop by and visit.) We have done a lot of work as well with refurbishing and cleaning up of our church’s vessels. And through a generous memorial contribution, we are in the process of replating several of our liturgical items—candlesticks, chalices, processional crosses (which we just got back this past week.) These are but a few of the projects embarked on this past spring and summer.
Additionally, we have the new three-year strategic plan set up for each of our committees. There are some exciting programs that we will continue to build upon and some good new faith enrichment opportunities on the Mass, the Eucharist, Evangelization, and on the Second on the Second program which we will be finalizing and introducing in January. These along with several other mission-oriented programs will help ensure the vibrancy of our parish both now in in the years to come.
In a better effort to communicate these things and the work of the various committees and mission of the parish, I will be posting a monthly pastors report available to all though our parish media sources. It has always been my intent to do this, but unfortunately, with being short-handed on the priestly ministry side of things it was impossible for me to get that done. But now that we have Fr. Jeff on board (hurray) we can get back to some normalcy on that side of things. And a part of that includes getting around to visit all of our homebound and nursing home parishioners on a bi-monthly basis.
Also included the pastor’s report will be the progress on the vitality goals of the parish as submitted to the archdiocese as a part of their review of parishes. After review of the archdiocesan survey and discussion on what was presented to the parishes. The pastoral council selected these areas for our parish vitality goals:
- Service to others (which our 2nd on the 2nd program and summer Religious Education program addresses)
- Sense of Belonging (which includes programs through our Parish Life Committee like our Pictorial Directory, Card Program, and IGNITE program which will we will run again in the beginning of Lent next year. Additionally, will be engaged in outreach programs for our Marshallese and Filipino communities).
- The Mass—here we are going to put a big push on ministry involvement and training, as well as include Liturgy tidbit informational inserts in the bulletin. Additionally we will be offering a teaching Mass presentation and faith enrichment sessions on the Mass and the Eucharist.
All-in-all, there are a lot of good things happening this year in our parish—and I want to thank all of you for helping to make that happen. Know of my prayers for you and ask that you continue to pray for me. May we continue to build up God’s kingdom on earth so that we can build up His kingdom in heaven.
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Steve