This past weekend we welcomed Father Jason Welle, O.F.M., who came to make the annual Mission Appeal here at our parish.  Father Jason asked us to support the missionary work of his Franciscan community through prayer and financial contributions.

The Lord Jesus entrusted the mission of carrying the Gospel to every corner of the earth to His disciples.  Each year, we are given an opportunity to do that through the Mission Appeal.

But our call to participate in this mission of is not confined to one weekend.  We cannot forget this “corner of the earth” that we call home.  If we take as our point of reference the place where Jesus lived, it is we who live in a remote corner of the world.  And this is the particular corner of the world where the Lord asks us to make Him known.

In my homily last week, I made reference to the hope we have to use a social media website called Next Door to reach out to those who live here on the isthmus (which is pretty much the territory of our parish) with the invitation to faith.  We have a particular responsibility to do that, as does each Catholic parish in its own territory.  I want to repeat the invitation I gave from the pulpit last week – both to reinforce it and to reach a larger audience, as it goes out in the bulletin and by email.

Our plan is to use this social media website called Next Door.  Next Door allows individuals to share information about news, services, needs (lost and found) and events in their neighborhood with other members of the website living within a few blocks of them.

Next Door could be used to inform our neighbors about parish events (Theology on Tap would be one great candidate), schedules around the holidays, and so on.  It promises to be a far more efficient way to reach our neighbors than print advertising, direct mail, or other alternatives.

Because Next Door is based on neighbors interacting with each other, it does require people who live downtown being willing to post about parish events.  The parish can get information that we would like publicized out to you, but then we need you (and others downtown) to post that information on Next Door.  And because Next Door neighborhoods are quite small, we need many people cooperating in this effort to cover as much of the isthmus as possible.

We have already made an effort to reach out to registered parishioners who have an address in zip code 53703.  But we may have missed some, and there are many people involved in the life of the parish who are not registered (and whose addresses we do not have).

If you live downtown, we are looking for you!  We need your help!  Please take this opportunity to fulfill your missionary responsibility.  To follow up, please contact José Flores, the seminarian assigned to our parish this summer, at josefloresau@gmail.com.