📣 Parish Announcements
Father Bob • October 31, 2026
CCW Holiday Bazaar
The CCW Holiday Bazaar is next Saturday from 8:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., so come and enjoy the many foods and the flea market items, plus the many themed baskets.
Sign-up sheets in the narthex for baked goods and donations are requesting your help. So, if you can fill out the sheet and supply something, that would be great.
Box of Joy Project
And thanks to the many helpers who folded and packed 500 Boxes of Joy for the Box of Joy Project this past week.
All Souls’ Day Mass
Because Monday is All Souls’ Day, we will have a Mass Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. That’s not a holy day of obligation, but there will be a Mass Monday morning for all of the departed.
Mass of Remembrance
Plan to attend our Mass of Remembrance on Tuesday, November 3, at 7:00 p.m., where we remember all those who died this past year.
We have this special Mass on November 3 to remember all of our parishioners who died in the past year.
Annual CCW Christmas Dinner
The annual CCW Christmas Dinner is on Wednesday, December 2, at 6:00 p.m.
Tickets are available in the parish office for $25. It’s a social hour with appetizers, dinner, and entertainment.
Ignite Campaign
And because our parish, Saint Mary’s, is in the first wave of the Ignite campaign—you remember, I spoke to you about the $70 million diocesan-wide campaign to form an endowment fund for the diocese to support retired priests, education, evangelization, vocations, cathedral renovations, and Catholic Charities.
The behind-the-scenes work is being done, but the one thing I haven’t told you is what they’re asking Saint Mary’s to provide: our assessment.
Our assessment is 1.5 times our ordinary income averaged over three years, which means that, for Saint Mary’s, they’re asking us for $810,000.
Now, the good news here is that’s not mandatory.
It’s not like the Diocesan Annual Campaign, where we are kind of penalized if we don’t meet it. This is a donation to endow the diocese for the future.
Actually, there’s a reward for donating to this project: out of every dollar that we donate, we get 30% back for use here in the parish.
And if we hit our goal of $810,000 in donations, then we get 70% back.
So that’s the deal.
A lot of things are happening behind the scenes, and I will keep you involved. I’ve got a meeting in Harrisburg in November. I’ve got a meeting with the staff up there in December.
So this is going to go forward in January, as of January 1.
And you probably won’t hear any of your friends in other parishes talking about it, because I think we’re the only parish in the Lebanon Deanery who is in Wave 1.
So we’re going to set the pace and the example for everyone else, but let’s pray that we do a good job.