May 11, 2020
Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you and your families well. I and our parish clergy, religious, and staff continue to hold you in prayer as I know you hold us in yours.
I'm writing this evening to share with you a few short updates.
The letter from this finance council to the parish on our current financial condition seems to have been well received based on the responses I received from our parishioners. Some wrote to express their gratitude for the information, others to thank the council for their service to the parish, still others requesting information on online giving and other methods of contributions. I am grateful that so many of our parishioners are doing what they can to support the life and mission of the parish during these difficult times. Thank you.
At the time of the letter was sent, the finance council informed you that we had submitted our SBA (Small Business Administration) loan application to our financial institution in the hope of enrolling the parish in the PPP (Payroll Protection Program). I am pleased to inform you that the application was approved and the funding was received. This forgivable loan will cover our payroll obligations for the next eight weeks. It is an enormous help to us at a time when it is most needed. I want to both acknowledge and thank our business manager Andrea Pesta for the many hours of hard work that went in to preparing the application, submitting it, and then following up on its progress with our financial institution. Andrea worked relentlessly to ensure that the best interests of our parish and our employees were served. We owe her our gratitude.
I am encouraged by the number of people joining us for the live-stream of Sunday Mass on Facebook at 11AM. We have begun to live-stream daily Mass on Facebook as well on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 12:15PM. Please join us for daily Mass, too, if your schedule allows. The live-streams are also available on the parish website at stpeternewbrunswick.org for later viewing and prayer.
The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, which is scheduled to be celebrated on Thursday, May 21, has been transferred by Bishops of New Jersey to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 24, 2020. While the Solemnity of the Ascension is routinely celebrated in other regions on this Sunday, this has not been our practice. The transfer of the Solemnity to the Seventh Sunday of Easter is for this year only in the Province of New Jersey.
Lastly, this past Friday I had the honor of burying two infants who were tragically abandoned and found hours apart on February 19 at a recycling center in the city. While the investigation into their deaths is still ongoing, Bishop Checchio offered to bury the children and with the assistance of Mayor Jim Cahill and other country officials, their bodies were released to us for burial in the parish cemetery. I am grateful to our Bishop for his initiative, to our Mayor and other civil servants who assisted us, and to the Kearns Funeral Home for volunteering their professional services. The children have been laid to rest with dignity in our parish cemetery. Please pray for them. Pray, too, for their parents that, as our Bishop noted in his remarks on this tragedy, they might find "...healing after this tragic, misguided, decision".
Ora Pro Invicem
Let us pray for one another.
Servus,
Msgr. Joe Celano
Pastor