Republican town

Family Guy has its on moments and its off moments, but this week's episode was awesome. Here is another great clip

A Little Political Humor

For all you other Poli Sci and Scooby Do fans, a treat courtesy of Family Guy:

Goings on in Phoenix.

It has been a while since I gave you all a basic rundown of what has been going on here at the parish, so I figured it is about time to give you a picture of life in the past few weeks.

The most notable element of the past few weeks was the passing of a dear friend of Holy Cross.  Dr. Frances Amabisca has been an important part of our Holy Cross community in Phoenix since we arrived here.  In fact she has been tutoring Holy Cross religious since Fr. Tom Zurcher was here many years ago and ended with the four sessions she gave me when I first arrived here in July.  When I first met Frances in July it was evident that her health was failing and while she had better and worse days which steadily became more and more worse days.  When we celebrated Frances' Mass of Christian Burial on September 25, eight Holy Cross religious were present, including four who came in from outside of Phoenix, which was a beautiful testament to the impact that Frances had on Holy Cross here in the valley.  She will be dearly missed.


Also in the past few weeks, all our parish programs, the school, RCIA, RICA, RCIC, religious ed, youth group, and the multitude of other groups, ministries, and committees are now on their regular and normal schedules which means that my life has finally found a bit of normalcy, or at least normalcy for parish life.  There really is no such thing as normal really at the parish, but a day to day managing of the mini-crises that come up, while trying to get some prep work done for future projects.  It is not uncommon for me to walk into the office in the morning with 2 or 3 items on my to do list, get side tracked by a few issues that need immediate attention and then leave the office at night with barely any progress made on the original to do list.  So here is a peak of what I've been doing the past few weeks:

I have 3 couples preparing for marriage, so I try to meet with them every three weeks or so to check in on how they are doing and to facilitate a conversation about the FOCCUS inventory.  Two of these couples are also in RCIA which adds an interesting dimension to those meetings.

RCIA meets every Tuesday night, so far we have been just in the getting to know you stage, but the kick off picnic is this Sunday and the following Tuesday we start with the first of the in depth presentations.  My first presentation is in 2 weeks on the Life of the Saints.

Our Parish does baptisms twice a month, once in English and once in Spanish, however before baptism, parents must register their children for the Sacrament and attend two preparatory classes.  I led my first registration night a few weeks ago and on Monday I give my first class.

The new Auxiliary Bishop of Phoenix, Eduardo Nevarres is making his first school visit in the diocese on Monday and it happens to be ours.  This has required a little bit of prep and explanation with the students on behalf of Sister and I, hopefully all will go well when he arrives on Monday.

Our major upcoming event at the parish is the Canonization of Blessed Bro Andre which will take place on the 17th of October.  We, like many other Holy Cross apostolates are planning to mark the event in style with a live viewing of the canonization (which incidentally is at 1:00 AM here) and a special mass Sunday night with Bishop Olmstead and a reception to follow.  This event will be the major focus for the next couple of weeks as we catechize our parishioners and prepare for the special mass.  This will be a great day for Holy Cross and we are doing our best to share that joy with all our parishioners.  Check out the new Holy Cross website on Bro. Andre at www.brotherandre.org 


 Finally a brief update on the rectory.  Progress has slowed a bit.  Construction is finished, plumbing and electrical are completed, and the painting nearly finished, however the house remains un-tiled.  Unfortunately there haven't been many parishioners coming forward to help tile the house.  Until they do, I fear the progress on the house will be fairly slow.  So please pray that some folks might come forward to help us.

On a side note, it is the first Friday of the month, so my monthly reflection has gone up over at the CSC Vocation blog, check it out here.

Please Vote!

Many of you know that I spent three years as a manager with the Notre Dame Band, an institution I still love dearly. At the moment the band is in a competition sponsored by CBS and if they win they receive $25,000 for the band. The competition is for the best compilation of the Hawaii Five-O theme song by a marching band. Please cast your vote for the Band of the Fighting Irish. Here is the link to vote:

http://promotions.mardenkane.com/cbs/marchingbandmania/index.cfm?yt=7dxrBbyKZ3A

And here is the Band's Performance:

Rectory Update

As many of you know, the rectory here at St. John Vianney has been under renovation since I got here in mid July.  However things are starting to shape up and we are nearing the end.  The construction is finish, as well as the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC.  The painting is in progress and the tiling should begin tomorrow.  I decided to take a quick video of the building today before the tiling began so I could walk through the whole building.  Here it is:

Back in Phoenix

The new kitchen and dining room, the door leads to the new chapel.

After Final Vows/ Diaconate weekend I returned on Monday to the parish where I was met with some substantial progress on our new rectory.  Over my three weeks at Notre Dame, the plumbing and electrical wiring was completed, dry wall was completed, windows were installed, and wall texturing begun.  Now the work is handed over to our parish volunteers, who have graciously agreed to paint the walls and tile the floors.  If all goes according to plan, we should be in the renovated rectory by the end of September. 

View of the living room from the kitchen.

The new chapel

At the parish, September also brings the return of many programs that had taken a break over the summer.  I am still slowly getting to know the multitude of different groups involved in our parish.

Lastly I have been asked to reflect on my experience here at St. John Vianney on yet another blog, the CSC Vocations Blog where I will have a column on the first Friday of every month.  Feel free to check it out!


That's about it for now, the next few days brings the regular parish routine, RCIA meeting, baptismal prep classes, and of course Save Environment Training, but of course, I'll take a break on Saturday to watch the Notre Dame game!

Go Irish!  Beat Boilermakers!

On the Joys of Being a Deacon

As mentioned in my previous post, I had the pleasure of being present at the Ordination to the Diaconate of Paul Ybarra, C.S.C. this morning.  As an ordained deacon Paul is now able to do a couple of things he could not before, one of these is to officially bless things in the name of the Church, which led to the following episode this evening.

I was walking down the hallway with my laundry and Paul was walking towards me.  I said "hi" and then joked by asking "have you made holy water yet?"  Paul's answer was "no" but with the vocal expression that said he had forgotten that he could now make holy water, so now he had to give it a try.  The hallway was pretty empty because it is hot out tonight and most of the seminarians had gone to find air conditioned bliss, however Denis Strach, who was just a couple of doors away overheard us, so into Denis' room we went to make holy water.  This being a rather unplanned and off the cuff event, the usual implents for holy water making were not on hand, but we managed to scrounge up a suitable container and found the prayer from the missal on the internet and there on Denis' desk Paul made holy water for the first time. 

What was remarkable about this event was the absolute joy on Paul's face.  Sure there was a certain giddiness, like when you buy lotto tickets for the first time when you are 18, but there was also a joy much deeper than that as Paul realized the great gifts, but also responsibility that come with being a minister of the Church and a conveyor of God's blessings, in a very real way, to others.  It was a great reminder to me, that though there are indeed many challenges to this life, it is still at heart, a life of great joy.  Thanks Paul!