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Fourteenth Sunday of the Year
7 July 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
Our fiscal year ended on 30 June 2007, and in a few weeks I will provide an annual financial report to the parish. For now, though, I want to give you a quick look at our financial health by looking at one month for the last three years. In May 2005 our average weekly income from the primary offertory was $24,489; in May 2006 that rose to $27,396; and in May 2007 it was $29,595. In other words, we’re growing slowly and steadily. (These numbers are slightly higher than those reported each week in the bulletin because we are able to publish only the amount counted on Monday, which does not include contributions that arrive by mail.) Moreover, while our offertory was growing our capital contributions also increased from $15,151 in May 2005 to $77,495 in May 2006 to $113,812 in May 2007. Putting these figures together, you can see why I am pleased with the overall fiscal health of St. Mary’s, and when the annual report is available, I believe everyone will share my conviction that we have much for which to be thankful.
But if we have much for which to be thankful, we also have much to do. The costs of running this parish never cease to rise, and the need to expand our staff and our services always grows with the growth of the parish. We must also meet our responsibility to maintain the facilities of this green and pleasant corner of the vineyard to ensure that it remains a green and pleasant corner of the vineyard for our children and their children, and to address these needs we are in the midst of the second phase of our 15 Year Master Plan, which includes the Fund Drive for the Future. This fall I will write to the entire parish about the status of our campaign and bring you up to date on the exciting work being planned right now to complete the renovation of the meeting space and rest rooms in the undercroft of the church and to construct our columbarium.
Even as we rejoice in these blessings, we must always be mindful of those who struggle to provide the necessities of life. St. Mary’s is always engaged in supporting works of Christian charity through financial contributions and the direct service offered by our members, and in the months ahead, after our new Pastoral Council is in place, I will work with lay leaders in the parish to find ever more effective ways of serving those in need right here in our own community. Because of the sometimes frustrating nature of serving the least of the Lord’s brethren, it is a perennial temptation to substitute political action for Christian service. Seeking social change through political action is not a bad thing, of course, but that is not the Church’s mission. As individual disciples and as a parish family, we are called to serve individual human persons in poverty with practical and direct support, not to engage in utopian schemes of eliminating poverty in the abstract, and together we will continue to find creative ways to serve those in need. As the Lord Jesus teaches us, “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.35)
Father Newman