Happy Mother’s Day…a special day that has taken on a new meaning in my family’s life as this is the first one without both my Mom and Mother-in-Law. They will be missed, but we have so many fond memories of both of them. We will be having a BBQ in the yard at our house for Arlene with both kids and their spouses (Joy/Tony and Eric/Jackie) and probably the dogs Chloe and Harley attending as well. I’m sure a substantial amount of time will be devoted to recalling memories of “Oma” – German for Grandmother (what the kids called my Mom) and “Grandma” (what the kids called my Mother-in-Law). My Mom has been gone since October of last year while my Mother-in-Law has been gone since August of 1986…whether absence is recent or a long time ago, the hurt never seems to stop but becomes somewhat bearable when you think of them being with God – no more pain, no more memory issues, no more Alzheimer’s, no more assisted living, no more cancer, no more radiation or chemo treatments; just the light, peace and love of Christ and a happiness so immense and intense we can only imagine. I thank God every day for these two beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, hard-working, and strong women that we had in our lives. They made a profound difference in our lives. The ones that gave us life and that were our first teachers of the ways of life and the love of God; the first ones we went to when we hurt; the first ones we went to when we were happy; the last ones we ever thought we’d lose; and really, they still are in our lives, they still live on. As long as you have them in your heart, they never really die. May God bless all mothers – special people with a special vocation like no other – the ultimate example and manifestation of unconditional love.
Our parking lot lights are up and running. We decided to re-engineer them to ensure we’d never have a facility-wide power outage due to a short in one of the parking lot lights. We had a circuit breaker installed in each and every light, so if there is an electrical issue with one of them, that one light will trigger and go off, not the entire complex. The cost was a little hefty at $800 but we thought it well worth the money. In addition there were 10 light bulbs that needed replacing, not uncommon after a cold and harsh winter and replacing the bulbs is actually part of our spring maintenance schedule.
For the first time in a long time, we are ahead of goal on the weekly donations to the tune of $6,112.56. We’ve been below by 5% to 8% since September/October. Easter always gives us a nice boost in donations and this year was no exception. We’re on track to complete another year firmly in the black. We are nearly complete with the FY 2012 budget (due at the Archdiocese on May 15th) and as it stands right now, we intend to make it almost a pass through of this year’s budget; although we are challenging you parishioners by slightly increasing our weekly donation goal. More on that later.
Once again, Happy Mother’s Day, may God bless all mothers in a special way not just today, but every day.
God bless, Franz
