With deadlines for our bulletin printing and shipping, this is the first Pastor’s Column written by the pastor after the Christmas Masses on December 25. We had a beautiful celebration here at St. Charles and I am grateful to everyone who contributed…. our priests for long hours of confessions, our deacons for beautiful homilies, our decorators for a lovely church, our musicians for glorious music, our ministers for providing livestreams and Communion to the homebound, and for all who brought friends and relatives.
We were surprised this year by enormous crowds at the 4:00 Mass on Christmas Eve. We placed about 250 chairs in the church and Gathering Space. Still, we couldn’t come close to providing seats for the crowd this year and we had people who didn’t even get inside the doors into the Gathering Space. The count of those receiving Holy Communion was 300 higher than last year. I have no idea where everyone parked. Some parishes resort to having two simultaneous Masses, one in the church and one in the gym on Christmas Eve. I don’t like the idea of a Christmas Mass in the gym, but it might be a future discussion. I see this as a good problem, the kind of problem a parish is happy to face.
We have come to the beginning of a new year, it is a time when most of us are looking at finances and thinking about taxes. Our parish gives a 10% tithe on our offertory income to charities and parishes in need. While the parish is looking at our charitable giving, this is also a good time for each of us to consider our personal charitable giving. Like many parishioners, I try to tithe on my income. With annual pay raises, that means recalculating my donations each year. For those like me who make regular parish donations directly from a bank savings or checking account, call on Cece in our parish office and she can start or stop the donations and change the amount at any time. There is also an easy click on our parish website, Online Giving. While there is a 3% service fee for online giving, it is also a quick and easy way to make gifts to the parish.
