Hello Everyone…

Today we celebrate the Twenty-fourth Sunday in ordinary time.  

Last night we had our annual Sportsmen Banquet.  The Sportsmen Banquet is one of our biggest fundraisers for the parish.  It appeared to me that everyone who attended the event had a good time.  The number of door prizes and raffles are really quite impressive.  I would like to especially thank the Sportsmen Banquet committee for organizing and running this event.  Of course it take a lot of volunteers to pull this event off so I would also especially like to thank the workers who helped with the raffles and helped the Sportsmen Banquet be a very successful event.  I would like to thank all of those who attended.  The generosity of those who attended last night is greatly appreciated.  Next year’s Sportsmen Banquet will be Saturday September 10^th.

We are in need of some new members of the Sportsmen Banquet committee.  This would be a great opportunity to help serve the church.   They meet a handful of times throughout the year and are a really great group of people.  Please consider joining the Sportsmen Banquet committee so that we can continue this event for years to come.  

Our next big event is the Fall Festival on October 16^th and will feature the Knights of Columbus famous chicken dinner.  We are in need of volunteers to help with this event.  Please contact Kris in the office if you can help out.

Father Maria will be gone this week for the Diocesan all priests retreat.  Since no priests will be available there will be no weekday Mass or confession on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  He will be back for Mass on Friday.  Please pray for Father Maria and all the priests in our diocese that they may have a spiritually fulfilling retreat.  You can join us on Wednesday at 9am in the church where the school kids will sing the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  It is really quite beautiful and if you haven’t seen this done, I would encourage you to check it out.

Some of you have been asking how Father Kanna is doing in Rib Lake.  I had the opportunity to hang with him for a little while on Thursday and I am happy to say that he is doing very well.  He wanted to let all of you know that he is keeping all of us in his prayers and asks us to pray for him.

I would like to thank all who volunteered at the Labor Day fair stand.  We had our best year ever at the stand on Labor Day.  I would like to thank Sarah Schenzel and Gus & Val Caylor for organizing and running the stand.  They did an awesome job.  But none of that happens without the help of volunteers to help cook, clean and serve the customers.  And so thank you again to the volunteers who helped out.  Proceeds from Labor Day go to support our youth programs like NCYC and Extreme Faith Camp.

We are still waiting on some bills to come in from the fair stand during the fair.  That event was also a record breaking event for us.  I will let everyone know how we did when the final bills are paid.  A huge thank you to Gus and Val Caylor for organizing and running that event as well.   

There is still no news on the stripping of the parking lot.  But, I would like to thank Marty Swan for getting some fill to finish up the edges of the sidewalk.  Marty and Brett Swan did a nice of job finishing that off and making it look nice.

Thank you to Darrell Barker.   He donated the wood mushrooms in the courtyard that he carved out with a chainsaw.  We continue to seek donations for the Courtyard.  We hope to get some new patio furniture out there soon and to get our Mary statue secured.

Our St Francis Xavier Faith Formation Tailgate Kickoff party happened on Wednesday night.  Thank you to the Knights of Columbus for doing the grilling of brats, hot dogs, and hamburgers.  We had a wonderful turnout.  If you have not registered your children for Faith Formation, you can still do so.   Contact Kay Berg in the parish office.

CSA news:  We received our annual CSA notification.  For the 2021-2022 year, St Francis portion of the CSA is $53,346 and St John the Baptist portion is $7,651.   If you haven’t received you CSA material in the mail yet it should come soon.  Our CSA weekend is coming up on September 25 and 26.  I encourage everyone to prayerfully consider what you will offer for the CSA.  The CSA is what supports the finances of the Diocese.   They are able to offer many programs and services, especially for our youth, because of the parish’s generous support of the CSA.  Any portion of the CSA that is not covered by the parishioners has to be paid for out of the parish checkbook.  Our CSA for St Francis was paid 100% by the parishioners 2 years ago.   Let’s see if we can do that again.   Both parishes still owe on last year’s CSA.  St Francis still owes $6800 on the 2020-2021 CSA and St John the Baptist still owes $967 on their 2020-2021 CSA.  Again…it would be really awesome if we can get that paid off.  So, please prayerfully consider helping us pay off those obligations.  

We have completed another week of school.  I would like to give thanks to Almighty God for the staff we have teaching this year.   They are working harder than ever.   We continue to make adjustments to our schedule and the way we are doing things in this time of COVID and teacher shortage.  I want to thank all of our school families for their patience and understanding during this time.  We are off to a great start and things are running really smoothly and it's all because of the terrific staff we have in the school. One of the things we are being very intentional about is solidifying our Catholic identity.  One way we are doing this is by having meatless Fridays for our school lunch program.  I have attached a letter that went out to the staff and school families regarding why we are doing this.  I would ask that all of us consider all Fridays, not just during Lent, but all Fridays as meatless Fridays as a way of offering penance for the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on Good Friday when he was on the cross. 

That is all for now.   God Bless and have a great week!