St. Anastasia Roman Catholic Church
From the Office

   We have egg on our face…and no good excuses.  The CSA letter that was sent last week and has probably already arrived was sent to several of you in error.  It was supposed to only go to those members of our parish community that had not yet returned their CSA pledge forms.  The data-base did some funny things and took several parishioners that had already pledged as well as some children and sent them the “no pledge letter”…I had some very interesting conversations with several of you parishioners whose children had received the letter…“do you expect our kids to contribute to CSA?”  Of course we don’t (but I did ask how old the kids were and if they got allowance…only kidding).  Obviously, we made a mistake.  After careful review it appears that our information filters as well as the data categorization were both slightly off, but only in selected instances.  We are in the process of fixing that…I can assure you that all your CSA, weekly, and special donations have been and will continue to be recorded accurately; as a normal course of business we are always checking and double checking our records to ensure accuracy and to make sure we maintain a high level of professionalism and your confidence. 

Despite my brain’s acknowledgment that the Apostles who walked with Christ were often confused, bumbling, sinful, doubtful, and just plain wrong, I often entertain a semi-healthy jealousy of them.  I’m jealous (Aren’t you?) that they were allowed to converse with our Lord over a daily meal, to hear His beautiful voice, to look deeply into His fiery eyes, to lean on His strong, dusty shoulder, to whisper in His ear.  I read the story of the paralytic in Jesus’ own hometown (Mark 2), and I am jealous on behalf of all those in our hometown – paralyzed by fear, grief, shame, illness, pride – who would benefit from the kind of personal healing He was freely offering that day; I am jealous when I think, “Oh, if only I could carry my friend to Jesus like that!” Or sometimes, “If only someone strong could take that kind of ridiculous risk for me today!”  Every day, I crave His true presence, and so my response to the gospel characters is often one of just wanting to reach through the pages of my Bible to give all those blessed fools a wake-up call.  A really loud one.  “HEY!”  I would yell, “OPEN YOUR EYES!  THAT’S THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE!  HE’S RIGHT THERE!! REVEL IN IT!!”

Please print out and read the entire packet!  Registration is due by September 1.

Religious Education Registration Forms 2010-11

Join Us!  Celebrating the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

“From this day all generations will call me blessed.”

With these words of Mary’s, found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we come to realize with greater depth the special role God had asked this humble young girl to play within His plan for our salvation.  In the more than two thousand years since these words were first spoken by our Blessed Mother, the Church has continued to grow in its understanding of Mary’s role in our salvation – and indeed, all generations since have and will continue to call her “blessed.”

One highly beneficial way to intensify your relationship to God and His church is to become a catechist for others. Next year’s schedule offers many scheduling options for everyone involved; we also have some more customized catechist experiences to meet your comfort level, including: co-teaching, mentorship/internship, variable class-sizes, babysitting, teen helpers, and valuable classroom-management training. About ¼ of our households with children also contain a catechist: how awesome! I’d also like to invite the households without young children in them to send forth a catechist or two…. Think of the wisdom and experience, the breadth and depth that such involvement could lend to our youth’s formation! Please pray this summer about becoming involved as a catechist. It is not too early to sign up, if you’re ready to answer the call!  Just contact me or Maryann Brani at the Parish Office to let us know how you’d like to help, or fill out the Catechist Proposal and turn it in. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Your pickle,

Marian Bart

Many of you generously donated to the Missionary appeal last week. We had indicated in previous issues of the bulletin that we were considering doing one collection for all Diocesan Special Collections instead of coming back to you every couple of weeks with those collections. We had asked for your feedback on that plan. Overwhelmingly, the feedback was negative, i.e. against doing that. The two biggest concerns were having all that cash on hand at one time and also not wanting to give to all the special collections but only selected ones. Based on the feedback, we will not put that plan into effect and will continue to put the envelopes out as the special collections become due. We do thank you for your honest and quick feedback.

I’d like to update you on last year’s CSA campaign here at St. Anastasia. As you may recall, our assessment was $237,334 and just like this year’s assessment, it looked insurmountable.  We just received our final tally for last year…amount pledged was $272,039; actual amount received was $261,657.93…so we exceeded our assessment for last year by $24,323.93.  We took that amount applied it against our June 30^th loan payment and actually made a larger payment of $49,323.93 due to the flexibility afforded by the large CSA refund.  The $261,657.93 amount came from 920 pledges out of a possible 3,376 or 27%.  If you extrapolate last year’s performance to this year, we should make this year’s assessment with room to spare if everyone that participated last year does so at the same amount this year; not sure if that is realistic. 

NEW LEADERSHIP! A few weeks ago, we prayed to the Holy Spirit and asked that He select the right individuals to fill in three ad hoc positions that were vacant on our Parish Council. Seventeen individuals volunteered to throw their names into the hat. I am happy to announce that Jim Collison, Erwin Coronel, and Mike Wullaert were selected. They will begin when we pick up with our regular meetings at the end of the summer. Thank you to all of you who offered your names. I am sure that we will utilize your gifts in some unique way.

To a cynic, that piece of wisdom from Jesus may seem like a bit of religious tripe: salesmanship or trickery. To me, more and more as I struggle through this life, and especially now that we have said goodbye to yet another beloved child from this parish, I am struck with its beautiful truth.

At its most basic (and also its highest?) level, the beatitude means we are blessed to realize that this world contains suffering and evil, and that the next one erases them completely – that there will indeed be comfort in our future.

“And they all ate and were satisfied…” (Luke 9:17)

In the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, there is a critical starting point: when the apostles pose the problem of the crowd’s hunger to the Lord, His reply is, “Give them some food yourselves.”  And so, they bring forth all they can: five loaves and two fish.  It seems hopelessly inadequate, but, in God’s hands, it’s enough.  More than enough.

Every day, God requires our gift, so He can turn it into His glory.

Accordingly,each weekend, during the sacrifice of the Mass, we contribute to a new tradition at St. Anastasia. During the Presentation of the Gifts, we will add a ceremonial presentation of food items, with the intent of sharing this offering with our Food Pantry recipients.

Specific items will be collected each week in the narthex as you enter church. Please check the BOTTOM of the homepage on the website, the board in the narthex, or the Good News bulletin to find out what kind of item to donate.

For next few collection we are asking for:

August 28/29: Laundry Detergent, Dryer Sheets and Tissue

September 4/5: Baked Beans, Canned Ham and Spam

September 11/12: Coffee, Oatmeal, Tuna and Chicken Helper