April 19, 2020

Dear St. Martin of Tours Parishioners,

A happiest of Easter to you all! I miss you very much.

Yes, live streaming has helped, but you know and I know it’s not the same.

It seems ridiculous that while you can stand in line (six feet apart and wearing a mask ideally) to buy liquor, you can’t stand in line to receive Holy Communion. Maybe once this pandemic is over the bishops will reevaluate how they handled this situation...

However, please watch my homily from Holy Thursday: Even if you cannot receive Our Lord sacramentally, you can unite with Him in His Sacrifice – which is infinitely more valuable. You, like the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John who stood before the Cross with tears streaming down their faces; you, too, receive no sacrament. But you console Jesus. You pray with Him.

Once you understand this fact (it’s the same “Offer it up!” we all heard as children), you will understand how precious your watching our Masses Livestream is to Jesus. He is Lord of all Time and Space. Even in your homes, you are with Him if you believe.

If any of you is diagnosed with COVID-19, please let me know as soon as possible. I need to anoint you! We must pray for you! My hope is none of you are affected but if you are, I ask you, please, let me know. I am the shepherd of your souls.

As most of you know by now, we had a small break-in during our Easter Vigil. The thieves were probably kids looking for drug money. They took an Apple Computer and maybe the equivalent of less than $1K of mailed-in offertory. However, since most of the offertory was checks, these kids didn’t get much at all. They weren’t thorough at all, I can tell you. I would like to commend my dog whose vicious barking limited the thieves to the rectory office area and who most likely chased them out pretty quickly.

I wish to thank all of you who have continued to contribute to our parish. Especially during this time of uncertainty, what you give to our parish is even more precious and beautiful. However, I must tell you that we are not doing really well financially. I decided, because of the booming economy, that it would be a good time to renovate the church. It seems most people like the renovations. I did the renovations because a more harmonious and peaceful church space can assist our prayers. So I am glad that was done.

But now without Bingo and with the loss of loose offertory, our numbers from March 31 tells us we are almost $61K in the red. That’s pretty bad. Now, we do indeed have money in our Capital Improvement Fund and Educational Scholarship Fund; we are still awaiting our $15K gift from the Annual Catholic Appeal; and our parish is eligible to apply to the Federal government’s SBA Payment Protection Program, which would assist us with an estimated $35 - $36K. Adding that up, we’re only down $10K – Except that we are not. This April, we continue without Bingo. This April we are set to have accumulated a yearly deficit of $60K; if we are closed all of May, then we project a deficit of at least $80K.

However, you can help by continuing to give to your parish. I am asking for you to assist our parish financially. I am recommending that if you do not use online giving, it’s time to set that up. We have fraud protection on electronic giving. It will help you and us.

Frankly, money is not the greatest of my worries. One reason is because I know how much you love our parish. You want us to survive and thrive, and so do I. That’s part of the reason I am here: to do everything we can to keep our parish alive and thriving for another hundred years – at least. I fight for what’s important, and I’m fighting and will fight for this parish.

My prayer (St. Padre Pio says, “Pray, don’t worry!”) is that when we are victorious over this hellish virus, our people will choose to return to Mass. When, not if, things return to normal, that will be the time when all of us, including those who have been half-hearted about coming to Mass, must, must, must! return to give thanks to God. Jesus Christ is asking us: What did we learn from this trial? Jesus is being so gentle with us Americans. He loves us Americans. Of all developed nations we are the most faithful to Him. Jesus desires to turn our nation away from selfishness and greed and to use our nation to spread His Love in the world. When this COVID-19 is defeated, we need to come to Church to give thanks.

I am preparing for that first Mass when we all return. It will be a special Mass. I am asking Rome for a special blessing upon all who come to Mass (I hope I get the blessing in time!).

Please pray for me, my dog, for this parish, for our parish family, for your family, and for yourselves. Pray for St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, the Great Mother Church of South County, Missouri. We pray, I pray, that all of us and our families emerge from this plague unscathed, and that we emerge from this strange tunnel of darkness a holier and more spiritually focused people.

Jesus loves you. And so do I.

Let us pray for one another.