Dear Friends in Christ: After several weeks of compilation, I am pleased to offer you a summary of the listening sessions that I hosted in July/August. I am already fulfilling some of the suggestions and requests that were brought up in these seven sessions, but more importantly, they provided a foundation and a game plan that will guide my future years with you. I brought your ideas and suggestions to prayer, and wanted to take some time this weekend to share my pastoral priorities and the main projects that I hope to bring to fruition over the next 10 years or so of my life and ministry with you. Pastoral Priorities (1) To teach effectively, mainly through weekend homilies that will be both educational and memorable. If you leave church and your family spontaneously discusses what they heard at Mass over meals and throughout the week, then I achieved this goal! Please know that all of my homilies are "from scratch" and I do not recycle homilies or subscribe to a syndicated homily service. (2) To heal and reconcile parishioners to the Lord and encourage a more worthy reception of the Sacraments. This will include an expansion of the times that we offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation and prioritizing office appointments for those who are seeking annulments and walking with them fully through the process. (3) To have a deliberate presence among the youth, including the St. Alphonsus School community, Parish School of Religion, and Sunday youth ministry events and summer trips. Building & Infrastructure Priorities (in chronological order) (1) Larger & more permanent structure for St. Vincent de Paul Ministry/Wednesday food distribution. (2) Sanctuary furniture modifications in St. Alphonsus Church. (3) Develop columbarium space in our cemetery for parishioners and their family members who wish to have their cremains interred on our church property. (4) St. Alphonsus School expansion involving six new classrooms, a conference room, handicap accessibility of existing buildings, and improvements to the school administrative offices. (5) Expansion of paved parking areas. (6) New rectory As we look to Thanksgiving, I want to issue a challenge to our parishioners. In mid-September, a very generous family gave a $30,000 grant to our St. Vincent de Paul Conference, so that we can build a larger building (on a concrete slab) and help solve the problem of local poverty. The grant is designed to be "matching funds,” and the donor family would like to see us raise at least $30,000 towards this new building, which would be a metal building that could be dressed up on the outside with the leftover brick from the Parish Activity Center construction. We would ideally place this new building along the perimeter of the Parish Activity Center parking lot so that clients could park on an existing concrete lot as they wait for food distribution, instead of lining up along Frenchtown Road and sometimes creating a traffic jam. Our volunteers help at least 50-60 households with food each week. The goal is to build a 2,400 square foot building. It would have 2,000 square feet for St. Vincent de Paul (more than double their current building space) and 400 square feet of storage space for two or three other ministries here at St. Alphonsus that meet in the PAC. The new building will also have a bathroom—something that the existing St. Vincent de Paul building does not have. Currently, our volunteers must cross the street or walk to the back door of the PAC to use the restroom on Wednesdays. Normally, the Thanksgiving Day and Ash Wednesday collections go to our St. Vincent de Paul ministry. I invite you to be extra generous this year, so that we can give our St. Vincent de Paul ministry a nicer home. Thank you, Fr. Jason