Dear St. Gertrude - June 5, 2005
For the last three days, four of your parishioners have been at the Cenacle on Fullerton. It sounds like some fancy hotel but it is a wonderful retreat center near Clark Street. The reason why Crystal Chan, Allen Stryczek, Peter Buttitta and I were there was the seminar on Evangelization, with our good friend Fr. Joe Kruszynski running the show. This all fits in with a notion that it is quite possible to get 600 more people to Church on a weekend. You will be getting a full report about what we learned next week.Meanwhile, today we begin our W.O.W. experience. That stands for Walk On Water. Teens are being invited into a new experience of parish. We haven’t been very good at attracting teens into parish life. I think there has been a reluctance on both sides and so this may be the start of something big. The teens will have to take a step into the great unknown. Please encourage any teenagers on your radar screen to give us a try.
School will be letting out and graduation evening is June 6. The Northside Catholic Academy continues to be a very happy place for most of the children and most of the parents. Sometimes we have some choppy water and surely the downsizing which reduces us to two campuses for next year has been a test. But I think we have weathered the worst part and I hope that now with two sites we can be more focused and more closely knit. Our principals, Sabrina Roy and Debbie Sullivan, have put in countless hours in making this shift. Debbie is very grateful for all the prayers offered for the recovery of her back problems.
So may June be as pleasant as it promises,
WK
Filed under: Dear Saint Gertrude
