The Vicar's View

It is hard to believe that we are already close to halfway through the summer! There has been plenty to keep all of us busy, and I want to thank, in a very special way, all who have generously volunteered for many things in our parish recently: the numerous people who helped with a successful Parish Picnic; all the adults and youth who helped with Vacation Bible School; everyone who helped with our Corpus Christi procession last week; our 20+ new sacristans; All of this on top of our usual volunteers: ushers, church cleaners, money counters, servers, EMHSs, cantors, choir members, deacons, and so many more. I know Fr. Jarred says it a lot, but I want to echo it as well: your generosity is greatly appreciated! I also wanted to take the opportunity to fill people in on the role of priests at Lehman Catholic going forward. As many of you have heard by now, there will not be an assigned priest as chaplain beginning this upcoming year. This was a decision made by the Archdiocese back in September, which we have been preparing for. The reason for this difficult decision pertains somewhat to Beacons of Light. These next five years are going to be very hectic trying to bring each family together, figuring out all the little ins and outs

at each parish, and working overtime to unify and better each parish community. Basically, this means all hands on deck! I know that a few people have pointed out that there has been no change in the number of priests per parish in our region, which is true, and for that we are grateful. But if you remember, in December when our final family was announced, we were only assigned three priests, and there is a good chance that this will happen in the foreseeable future. With the size of the parishes and the amount of work that will be on the priests’ plates, with three priests in our near future, it would be very difficult to also assign a priest at a high school.

Now that does not mean that there will never be priests at Lehman. Fr. Jarred and I sat down with Veronica Gaier, the principal, and we are still committed to providing weekly Confession and all school Mass for our students. We have eight priests from our family and the surrounding parish families already willing to step up to the plate and help. And a great benefit from this is that students who are from other parishes can see their priest at Lehman, hopefully building up more of a relationship with the priest they see on Sundays! Additionally, each priest is going to be able to preach and reach a different group of students than others, so the opportunity is there for more of our youth to connect with a priest.

I know that this is a difficult decision for many people to hear, but our commitment to our youth and future generations will certainly continue strong. I am very grateful for the opportunities this past year at Lehman has provided for me, for the relationships I have built up among our wonderful high schoolers in the area and to teachers and staff, and I look forward to those continuing to grow, albeit in a different way. I’m looking forward to being involved in Youth Ministry at all four of our parishes, as well as being able to spend more time in Holy Angels school, while continuing to be associated with Lehman!

Next weekend, Beacons of Light finally starts... so buckle up, keep praying for all of us, and let’s bring many souls to God’s grace and mercy!

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Aaron Hess