What would you do if you won the Mega Millions Jackpot? At one point in the past weeks, the Mega Millions jackpot was a total of 1.35 BILLION dollars before someone won it in Maine. That is, to put it lightly, a LOT of money. I’m sure that many of us could think of a lot of things that we could do with 1.35 Billion...

Do you hear what I hear? Yes, I know those are the words of a Christmas song, but even though our Christmas season has concluded, I think that those words are words that you and I are invited to reflect upon today. Do you hear what I hear?

To be a registered member of a Parish is to have a sense of belonging to a family. Registration is important when it comes to requesting the Sacraments or becoming involved in the life of the Parish family. Do you receive envelopes? It could be you’re not registered. If you would like to become a member, receive envelopes, or need to update your address and/or phone number, you can call the church office at 216-252-2626 or drop a note in the collection basket.

As our Christmas season draws to close I wanted to take another opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! As we conclude these Christmas days, I wanted to take the opportunity in today’s column to say thank you! It’s something that while I always feel it, I don’t always remember to say it, so again, thank you!

Have you heard about Father’s Friday Flocknotes? Father’s Friday Flocknote is a note from Fr. John that he sends out (pretty much) every Friday containing important parish news and events as well as spiritual insights & prayers. These notes come via an email service known as Flocknotes (hence the name).

Hi there, everyone! It’s Angel! My dad’s been doing a lot for Advent & Christmas so I wanted to help him out and write today’s column. Let me start out by wishing you all a Happy New Year! As we begin this new year, we enter, in many ways, into the unknown. While we certainly have our hopes, plans, & dreams for today & the upcoming 364 days of this year, in many ways the course of this new year is unknown.

Merry Christmas! On behalf of myself & our entire parish staff please know of our prayers during this holy time of year! A special welcome too to anyone who might be visiting us on these holy days as well as all those who are returning home to celebrate. We are glad that you are here!

Throughout the season of Advent we often sing the familiar hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” It’s a very haunting & very familiar melody, but how many of us are aware of where the words of the song find their origins?

Last month, I took some time for my annual retreat. While many times I like to do group retreats with other priests, for this particular retreat, I packed up my car & headed down to southern Ohio & a cabin in the woods in Hocking Hills for a solo retreat.

As we continue along our Advent journey, I’d like to begin a new tradition on the 3rd Sunday of Advent (next weekend), an annual Bambinelli Blessing.The Bambinelli Blessing isn’t a tradition that I came up with, but rather a tradition at the Vatican that began with Pope St. John Paul II & has continued through Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

As we enter into the season of Advent & begin a new Church year we are invited & encouraged to pay attention for the new ways that God comes among us. As we draw closer to our celebration of Christmas when we celebrate the historical coming of Jesus into our world, we start the Advent season by focusing on Jesus’ coming at the end of time.

In one of my columns last month, I talked about some of  the insights that I had gleaned at our Priests’ Convocation that we had at the beginning of the month.  Over time I hope to share with you some of those insights with you.  This week I want to share some insights that I gained about splitting my time each week between both parish offices.

With the overwhelming generosity from this parish, we have always been able to create so much joy over the holiday season. So please check out our Giving Tree this year. As of now we have 26 families with 31 children to provide for. Simply take a card from the tree, enjoy a day of shopping, and return the gift with the card from the tree...

In just a few weeks we will begin the season of Advent, entering into a new liturgical year. The season of Advent invites us to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus into our lives. One of the ways that we can do that, one of the ways that we can prepare ourselves to recognize the ways that Christ comes among us is by taking time in silence & prayer.

Hi there, everyone! It’s “the boss,” Angel, here again. My dad asked me to write a column again as this week on Monday (Halloween) marks 3 years since I hopped up on my dad’s lap at the rescue agency & told him to pick me. And boy am I glad he did. I am so, so happy to be here with all of you! I hope you are doing well! Here we are, right at the cusp of November. I know that my dad loves November because his birthday is in it, but I dread those months where my bathroom gets covered in snow!

The beginning of October found me gathering with 200+ brother Priests of the Diocese out in Huron at Sawmill Creek Resort for our biannual Priests’ Convocation. I remember when I was in the seminary that the week of the Priests’ Convocation was somewhat a week of vacation with all of our Priest professors being away.

One of the great forms of prayer in our Church is intercessory prayer. So many of us have people & causes that we pray for on a regular, sometimes even daily basis. We pray for people who are sick, people who have died, we pray for peace, we pray for the unemployed, just to name a few. There are many ways and forms that we could ask our Lord’s intercession, one of those ways that we are very familiar with is through the offering of Masses.

As we enter into the month of October, I wanted to look at some upcoming events you might be interested in marking on your calendar.

Hi everyone, it’s Angel again! As we come to the close of this month I asked my dad if I could write to you about something serious. This month of September is National Suicide Prevention Month. I did some reading and I found out that suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States, claiming, in 2020, the lives of roughly 45,000 people. Those are some high numbers!

Over the next few weeks we will be rolling out a new opportunity for you to be able to do everything from share your thoughts & suggestions, to getting information about various ministries & ways to be involved around the parish, (for when someone new visits us) to begin the process of joining our parish family. These boxes will be found, starting with the first weekend of October, October 1st & 2nd, at the doors of the Church.