A Letter from Fr. Paul — May 29, 2016

Congratulations to St. Pius parishioners Madelyn Ballard, Amir Bird, Moira Gonzales, and Matthew Woods, who will graduate from Wauwatosa Catholic this Friday. May God bless you at this transition in your lives. We thank them for their ministry to our community in music and as acolytes. We hope you will continue to participate!

We thank Sr. Elizabeth (Liza) Segleau SDS, who has been taking care of our webpage and leading our Health Ministry Committee, for her many hours of volunteer work. Liza has accepted the invitation to be a part of an interprovincial community of the Salvatorian sisters in Guatemala. “Interprovincial” means there will be sisters from the USA, Colombia, and Brazil. They will minister with members of the Spanish unit of the Salvatorian priests/brothers and the Lay Salvatorians who have been in Guatemala for many years. We wish Sr. Liza well and promise to accompany her with our prayers.

Parishioner Chris Graham has taken over maintenance of the webpage and our other social media, which is so important in this day and age. We thank him for his willingness to serve the community in this way.

The Living Wells campaign this year ended at $26,450, which means that 5 more villages in Tanzania will have wells and some others will be repaired. May God bless you for your generosity. 

The spring meeting of our Salvatorian Formation Commission will be held this week at our SDS Provincial House from Tuesday through Friday, so except for Masses I will be off the grid (remember I am the Director of Candidates for the Society and so am a member of this commission). Please keep us in prayer as we continue our work of accompanying men in their discernment about religious life.

So far this year’s collection for our sister parish totals $2,829. If you have not yet contributed, please do so in the next week or two.

May is the month of Mary. Silas Henderson had an excellent handout with words by Pope Francis on Mary. It is on our website, stpiusparish.org, in the News Section. Visit our website often to keep up on what is happening in your community! For example, you can find information on our Friday morning reflection/prayer sessions on the Sunday readings. Welcome! 

Having celebrated Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Holy Trinity, we come to the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, our last special feast on a Sunday until we celebrate the Feast of Christ King in 23 weeks! Remember we talked about Jesus not leaving us orphaned? And two special ways He is with us are His Spirit (which we celebrated on Pentecost) and His Body and Blood. The Spirit is our guide, our GPS, which helps us live our lives in relationship and service to others, as Christ did. Christ’s Body and Blood is our sustenance, our food and drink, which gives us the strength to follow the guidance of the Spirit.

As we celebrate this great Gift which Christ has given us, let us pray for ourselves and our community members, that we may show our appreciation for this great gift by receiving it weekly, so that it can sustain us in living our Christian life. And if you know someone who doesn’t come to Mass regularly, why not invite them to come with you!

-- Paul James Portland, SDS