Happy Sunday!
This weekend we are publishing our financial report for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. There has been no lack of excitement around the parish given the circumstances in which we found ourselves due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those of you who might skip to the bottom line you’ll find good news! I am so grateful that given all that has happened this year we remained in the black. This is because of you! Thank you for your continued support of our wonderful parish. The mission never stops!
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Thank you for all your prayers while I was away on retreat. I am glad to be back to the desert! In this week’s Gospel we hear the famous line from Jesus about civil authority, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” How fitting as we near elections that we are presented with our duty to our nation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The love and service of one's country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community.” In contributing to the good of society, it is truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom that help dispose the society more to Christianity. Everything that is true comes from God and can lead us back to him. The more we promote truth and dive into it, the more we can know the living God.
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We received some exciting news this week. As you know, during July and August we were promoting a matching gift opportunity to increase online recurring gifts. Everything up to $27,060 would be matched in new or increased online recurring gifts. I received a letter this week which said that the donor family was so impressed with our efforts that they are going to match every gift that met their criteria. This means that, instead of $27,060, we will receive over $55,000! I am incredibly grateful to all of you for participating in this gift and to the donor family for giving us this opportunity.
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We are continuing to slowly get back to something of a normal routine here at St. Joan of Arc. We’ve had some great showings at our Verso l’Alto Youth Group. It’s great to see so many high schoolers on Monday nights. Thank you to our wonderful core team for helping lead our teens.
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Things continue to get moving here on campus. Verso l’Alto had their second meeting this past Monday. It’s great to have so many high schoolers coming to grow in their faith. Our religious education meetings began with parents in English and Spanish. Things are humming along. This month we also received another installment from the Together Let Us Go Forth campaign in the amount of $33,000. Some of these funds will be going to replace air conditioning units around campus, three of which have already been replaced in Weidner Hall and the parish office. We hope to replace more units in the coming year. Thank you to everyone for giving us the opportunity to make this happen.
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Our Verso l’Alto youth group got off to a great start this past week. It was great to see so many of our high school students present for the first night of the semester. I am incredibly grateful to our core team of volunteers who helped make the night such a success. This week we begin our religious education classes for the new year. Please keep all of our families and students in your prayers as they begin this year of preparation for First Reconciliation and First Communion.
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I am very excited to announce that we reached our matching gift! Thank you so much to everyone who signed up for recurring online gifts or who increased their gift. The Diocese of Phoenix informed me that we would receive the match of $27,060 in October. This is a wonderful accomplishment and we are very thankful for all of you in helping us reach this goal.
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September is here and there is much to be excited about. First, a big thank you to everyone who participated in the Matching Gift opportunity. While official numbers are not complete, it looks like we have met the matching goal! This is truly something that took everyone doing a little part to achieve a great goal. Thank you!
Our Religious Education and Youth Ministry programs are getting ready to begin. As of now, the Diocese of Phoenix is issuing guidelines to continue to allow the size of public meetings to increase. As we all know, the situation has been rather fluid. I am grateful to each of you and our wonderful staff for your flexibility during this time. Life slowly continues to head back to “normal”.
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The end of August is already here! This summer has flown by (except for those weeks of 110 degrees and greater). I want to offer a humongous thanks to everyone who has participated in our matching gift campaign. We are so grateful to the family who has donated the $27,060 and to each of you for offering a recurring online gift to help us on our way to the match. If you haven’t participated yet, you can still do so through tomorrow (August 31st).
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This week is one of my favorites in the liturgical calendar. We have a wonderful line up of saints’ feast days and memorials. Tomorrow, the 24th, is the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle. The 25th is St. Louis of France. And on the 27th and 28th, we celebrate St. Monica and St. Augustine, respectively. While much can be said about all of these saints, I’d like to draw your attention to St. Louis, who ruled as King of France. In the Office of Readings for his memorial we read a letter he wrote to his son as a spiritual testament.
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My name is Bill Schneider and I am a deacon candidate (currently as an Acolyte) here at St. Joan of Arc (SJA) parish. God willing, I am scheduled for ordination this coming November. My family and I are long time parishioners, with our children attending a total of 6 years at the wonderful preschool here at SJA. (My wife made sure I included how much we appreciated the preschool staff giving our children such a great start to their schooling). My youngest son is 10 years old and he has been an Altar Server here for about 6 months before the pandemic. I am probably a lot like many of you in that I really enjoy sports, reading, hiking, spending time with my family, and a good frozen strawberry margarita on a hot day. At home, I am our “pool guy” and keep the water sparkling for cannon balls! Some of you may know me as “Dr. Bill” while I have been completing my diaconate formation here at SJA. I make my living as a pediatric emergency room physician at Banner Children’s Hospital where I feel blessed to care for the most amazing children and their families.
READ MORESt. Joan of Arc Parishioners,
My name is Andy Lambros. For those of you who don’t know, for the last five years, I have been the Coordinator of Stewardship here at SJA. The same year I started working here, I was accepted into the diaconate formation program as part of the 2020 Cohort. Fr. Connealy has asked me to share a little bit about myself and my journey to be ordained a deacon with all of you.
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I hope everyone has had a good week. Our second reading this Sunday from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans seems to speak straight to our present times. He writes, “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” St. Paul’s premise is beautiful, he gets right to the heart of things asking the most important question, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” He correctly presupposes that this is the most important thing. He doesn’t ask what can destroy our nation (indeed, Israel had experienced its near collapse multiple times) because even that cannot separate us from God.
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