November 20, 2020

Dear friends in Christ,

THANKSGIVING

As we come to the end of the liturgical year this weekend with celebration of Christ the King, I want to express my profound gratitude to God for the grace he has poured out upon us over the past year through so many difficulties and challenges.  Even and especially in this difficult time, we are especially blessed by the presence and actions of the Lord.  Many of these blessing are hidden, and Thanksgiving day gives us an opportunity to reflect and notice them.  I am particularly grateful to God for all of you, the parishioners of St. Jude. On Thursday we will celebrate our national day of Thanksgiving and thank God for our material and familial blessings.  But I am convinced that we hardly realize all the other not-so-tangible blessings God is working in us.  I see this daily in so many unsung acts of sacrificial love.

So thank you for your prayer…..

You can never imagine how many people you have helped by your prayers but the fruit of your prayer is obvious in the testimonials I receive daily of prayers answered.  How could we get through this without the support of each                            other’s prayers!

Thank you for your time….

So many of you go way above and beyond helping this parish go---especially in this time of COVID.  We couldn’t survive as a parish without all your hard work. Your efforts help so many.

Thank you for your talents…

I feel so blessed as a pastor because I have parishioners who not only can do anything, but are willing to share those gifts and do it with excellence.

Thank you for your generosity…

Your faithful stewardship and willingness to share your resources with the Church and those in need continues to amaze me.  Your extraordinary generosity keeps the parish going and has helped so many in need.

I keep coming back to the words of St. Paul which I make my own in gratitude for you and God’s grace working in you:

“I give thanks to my God at every remembrance of you, praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you, because of your partnership for the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right that I should think this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart, you who are all partners with me in grace…”

THANKSGIVING DAY MASS

As is our custom we will celebrate a special Thanksgiving Day Mass at 9 AM on Thursday.  No pre-registration will be required.  Please sign-in at the door.  Especially with cases rising locally and around the country, please make sure that you have no symptoms before you come and that you and your guests have not recently traveled out of state.  The Mass will be livestreamed so that you can also participate in that way. 

NEW LIVESTREAM SYSTEM COMING

From the beginning of the COVID outbreak, we have been livestreaming from our I-phone’s. This has worked well in many respects but has a number of limitations.  We have ordered a new built-in livestream system which ‘hopefully!’ will be installed by Christmas. There are several advantages: a couple of cameras, the ability to zoom and change camera angles, direct connection to the internet, and direct connection of the sound system into the video feed.  All of this should improve the quality of the broadcast.  It will also enable us to broadcast the Mass in a closed-circuit system to the parish hall, which will be particularly important for Christmas with the social distancing requirements. The overall cost will be a little less that $15,000.  If you are able to help with this financially with a special gift, it would be greatly appreciated.  Just send in a check and add “Livestream System” in the memo section.  Thank you!!

Blessings and many thanks,

Fr. Jim Johnson