Merry Christmas

Dear Parishioners,

At this time of the year, it is good to recognize the Good News in our community. It is a time to look back with gratitude for all that God has done in our midst. It is a time for thankfulness and hope for the future.

For me, I look back on 2013 and see how the Year of Faith has helped us shore up our faith in the moral issues of our time. I give thanks for all who spent extra time to offer a daily Rosary, Fast on Friday’s, and attend our monthly Solemn Vespers with Adoration. I am also thankful for the concrete steps we’ve taken to begin the process of renovating our Church. We have a long way to go in the process, but we have a solid core committee who continue to discuss and explore ideas. I am also thankful for the work of Alan Crews who will be officially retiring as of this month. His joyful presence and work ethic has been inspirational for me, the staff, and parishioners who have worked with him. I am thankful for the arrival of John Becerra, our seminarian intern, who has added a view of hope for vocations to the priesthood. These are just some of the local happenings within our parish. But, there were some much broader events that also has effected the larger Church.

This past year we witnessed two major leadership changes in the Church, one locally and the other globally. First was the significant appointment of Archbishop Alexander Sample as our new Archbishop coupled with the retirement of Archbishop Vlazny. Then shortly after that, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world by his humble resignation, thereby setting into motion a conclave which elected Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope and the first pope to take a name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. Instead of the common news cycle of criticism of the Church, it was refreshing to hear and watch reports of these events set in a positive light. Since then, Pope Francis has continued to surprise and shock the world by his humble living and colloquial way of speaking. His actions of kindness and compassion have inspired many. I highly recommend reading the encyclical that he and Pope Benedict wrote, Lumen Fidei, as well as Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. While some in the secular press have been negatively critical about the latter document, I recommend that you read it for yourself and do not depend on the secular media to digest it for you. It is an amazing exhortation to be more evangelical in living out and sharing our faith. It would make a wonderful new year’s resolution to get a copy and prayerfully read just a few pages each day. We will be reading it as part of our weekly staff meetings in the new year.

We live in amazing times. 2013 was full of wonderful outpourings of the Holy Spirit locally and globally. Please continue to ask God to pour out His Holy Spirit upon us. Pray that we will be, as a community, a beacon of faith, hope, and love to our civic community as well as to the larger global community.

Finally, I want to express my thanks to all of the parishioners of St. Anne’s, St. Patrick of the Forest, and Our Lady of the River for their faith-filled example to me. Serving you as your pastor has fed me deeply. Thank you, especially, for being patient with my mistakes and helping me get up when I have fallen. I give thanks for being here with you as we, together, journey on this path of faith.

Merry Christmas!

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor

Year of Faith Opportunities

Dear Parishioners,

The school year is coming to a close and many of our young people are graduating from  high school, college, and even kindergarten!  But, most of our young people will be simply moving to the next level in their educational journey.  As a parent, the first priority for you is the faith-life and education of your child or children with whom God has entrusted to you. You might remember that you made this promise when you participated in the baptism of each of your children.  So, in that context, I want to encourage you to give serious consideration to your child’s participation in and education in the Faith.  We have many ways that you can consider to further that mission with which you’ve been entrusted.

The first is our grade school which brags of a full-day Pre-K and Kindergarden.  St. Anne Catholic School has been accredited from our earliest grades all the way up to 8th grade.  Our school has awesome teachers who know that the mission of faith comes first and foremost.  Our school offers more hours of faith formation and education per week than any of our ministries.  Our teachers are great at lifting up their students to excel in reading, mathematics, science, and the arts.  The classrooms are welcoming and the student to teacher ratio allows for maximum potential for contact with each other.  Our graduates have a wonderful track record of becoming leaders in the faith and the community.  They are well prepared and often are well ahead of their fellow students when they reach high school.  If you have children who are of age to attend our school, I want you to give serious prayer and thought to bringing your child or children to St. Anne Catholic School.  Enrollment is now open, so don’t hesitate.  Contact the school office and learn more about how the school may be a wonderful opportunity for your family.

Another way to fulfill that commitment of raising your children in the faith is enrolling them in our Faith Formation Program which also begins with the school year.  We have dedicated catechists who spend hours preparing for lessons to reach the hearts of our young ones.  The classes are placed between our Sunday Masses which allow you as their parents to also grow in your faith.  As such, we will continue to offer an assortment of adult faith formation opportunities.  This past year, we watched Robert Barron’s Catholicism DVD series.  This coming year, we will continue to offer monthly opportunities for adult catechesis and Faith Formation.  So, please don’t just drop your children off and pick them up later.  Come and stay while they are going to Faith Formation classes.  Learn about the faith yourself.  Become a resource for your children when they ask those hard questions.  This Summer, we will host our annual Vacation Bible School which will help our children learn about our Lord through compelling stories, music, and activities.  Sign up now before it’s too late!

Lastly, if your child is in Middle School or High School, then be aware that we have a fantastic ministry to our teens.  Our youth ministry program is based on Life Teen which is an internationally recognized program of resources, training, and methods all geared toward creating opportunities for the teens to encounter Christ, most specifically in the Eucharist which is our source and summit.  We commit ourselves to tackling the hard topics that besiege our teens in our culture today.  This past year, we spent five weeks learning about Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, arguably the most compelling teaching on sex and marriage ever articulated.  This summer, our teens will participate in Joe’s Camp which will help them learn about the dignity of work and the needs of the less fortunate.  The High School teens will have the opportunity to attend Steubenville NW Youth Conference with thousands of other teens and nationally recognized speakers who will challenge them to live their lives as committed disciples of the Lord.

Pope Benedict XVI called for a year of faith.  That challenge is for all of us.  What are you doing to increase your love and knowledge of the Catholic Faith in your life and the lives of all your family members?  As your pastor, I want to encourage you to take the challenge seriously and consider all these options which I’ve describe here.  If you do not have children or they are already grown, consider how you can support these endeavors while at the same time growing in your own faith walk.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger

Pastor

Faith Opportunities at St. Anne's

Dear Parishioners,

There are many moments and programs full of opportunities to grow in your your faith once again.  Here’s just some of the wonderful highlights.

Movie Night
On Friday, Feb. 8th at 5 PM, we will be offering a very popular Disney-Pixar film which is for everyone, especially families.  It has been scheduled at this time so that families can come with their children, bringing their own dinner and a snack to share, and enjoy the company of other parishioners in a movie which portrays a fantastic Christian teaching.  Through two main characters, an old man and a young boy, the two have to face and fight through their fears and sorrows in order to find joy in their lives, in order to reach their dreams, in order to become who they are meant to be.  With the use of thousands of balloons, the old man decides to “float” his house up-up-and-away to a distant place in order to accomplish a life’s dream.  The boy, accidentally was on the porch the moment of the launching of the house, and from there begins the adventure.  Maybe this story is familiar to you, and maybe you know the title of the wonderful film.  Either way, this film captures the Catholic narrative of the Paschal mystery of suffering, death, and resurrection.  Didn’t see it that way the first time around watching it?  Well, come and see it again with new eyes and heart.  Maybe you will be looking “up” more often when difficulties strike.

Disciples on the Journey & Friday’s of Lent
A week from Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, Feb. 13th.  Can you believe that?  It has come so quickly!  That means Easter is also early, in fact Easter Sunday is March 31st this year. During Lent, as has been our custom, everyone is being encouraged to join or create their own Disciples on the Journey small faith sharing group.  These groups are fantastic ways to journey the 40 days of Lent so that, at the end, we will be ready to celebrate the great mystery of Christ’s resurrection.  In addition, we will begin again our simple dinners each Friday followed by Stations of the Cross done by various groups and ministries of the parish.

Vespers & Holy Hour
On Tuesday, February 12th, the day before Ash Wednesday, as part of Archbishop Vlazny’s call to greater attention in prayer to the issues of our day, we will be holding an evening prayer service (a.k.a. vespers) and solemn holy hour of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament here at St. Anne’s in the church.  It will be bilingual (English and Spanish), so all our parishioners can participate in their own language.

Vespers is the other great liturgy of the Church after the Mass.  It is part of what is called, The Liturgy of the Hours.  The purpose of the Liturgy of the Hours is to sanctify the hours the day by taking out special time to pray the psalms, listen to Scripture, and offer our prayers for the whole Church.  It is done by practically all religious and priests throughout the world everyday.

It is from the Liturgy of the Hours that the Rosary came to the fore.  The laity, in ancient time, desired to pray as the monks did, but were not literate or had prayer books.  So, the Rosary arose as a way to pray akin to the monks, but with no need for books.  The Rosary was a set of simple prayers the people could memorize, and grew and developed over time to what we see today.  The Psalms number 150 as do the original Hail Mary’s prayed in a rosary.

Come celebrate Mardi Gras in a different way by joining together in Evening Prayer with Solemn Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.  The focus will be the Eucharist, life issues, marriage, and religious liberty.  We will supply the booklets needed.  All you need to do is come and pray.  Again, hope to see you there.

Rite of Election
Every year people find themselves on a profound spiritual journey to the Catholic Church.  Our process for helping them is called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults or RCIA for short.  This year’s group is exceptionally large.  Praise God!  In two short weeks, Archbishop Vlazny will come to St. Anne’s to host an important step for those seeking baptism (Catechumens) and reception into full communion (Candidates).  The event is called the Rite of Election.  All the Vicariate parishes will be bringing their Catechumens and Candidates to St. Anne’s to be recognized by Archbishop Vlazny.  Everyone is invited.  This is not a Mass, but a formal ritual that is certainly full of good news.  The electricity of emotion is in the air whenever we celebrate a Rite of Election.  So, please consider yourself invited to this liturgy on Saturday, February 16th at 10:30 AM at St. Anne’s and witness the Church alive and growing!

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor

Year of Faith Challenge

Dear Parishioners,

Happy new year!  I pray that 2013 will bring with it an increase in faith and a renewed sense of mission in the Gospel for each one of you.  It is a time of resolutions and new beginnings.  In that line of thought, I would like to bring forward something special for your prayerful reflection for the new year.

In the forthcoming Catholic Sentinel, Archbishop Vlazny will be offering us a challenge in his personal column.  That challenge begins after the Christmas season and continues until the end of our observance of the Church’s Year of Faith.  Simply put, it is a call to prayer. 

In light of the times, that is the threats to human life, marriage, and religious liberty, the Archbishop desires that we all make personal commitments that will help us have the “spiritual stamina” to be “effective and joyful witnesses of faith, hope, and charity as agents of the new evangelization.”  His strategy has five parts:

1. Daily rosary
2. Monthly Eucharistic holy hours
3. Special Prayers of the Faithful at all Masses
4. Fasting and abstinence on Fridays
5. A second Fortnight for Freedom in the summer.

The reason for such a recipe of prayer is for us all to more deeply encounter our Lord so as to become better witnesses of God’s law of love of our society.  Fundamental Christian morality has been ignored or even outright violated which is serving to unravel some of our society’s most basic covenantal unions,  threaten more innocent life, and threatened our ability to freely practice our faith in its fullness.  The Archbishop will more fully explain these in his forthcoming article.  But, I felt it necessary to pre-empt his letter with this encouragement to learn more and read his article when it is published.

We, as a parish and two missions, will do our best to implement all of these directives and will publish the details of these plans once they are fleshed out amidst our current schedule of ministry activities.  In the meantime, I want you to bring to prayer your own personal preparation for this forthcoming program.  A docile spirit and openness to our Archbishop’s pastoral challenge is a good thing for us all.  May we allow ourselves to be “all-in” for this exercise of faith.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger

Pastor

Year of Faith

Dear Parishioners,

In light of this Year of Faith I would like to recommend that we all make some conscious effort to do something new in order to more deeply grow in our faith.  Three such opportunities of which I would like you make you aware are upcoming retreats, Catholicism 101, and our series of movie showings.

Regarding a retreat,  our community has the opportunity to participate in Cursillo and ACTS retreats.  Both of them are similar in structure and have the intent of building up and deepening one’s faith.  Please watch the bulletin for the dates for these two retreats. I believe it to be the case that going on a retreat is a profound way to deepen one’s faith.  I know that is the case for me, for my annual retreat is an essential part of my spiritual growth.  Again, see the bulletin for details about these retreats.

Some of you may already know that I have been offering a monthly series called “Catholicism 101.”  Coincidentally, many parishes have encouraged to show Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” DVD series which we have been already doing.  I have been offering this once a month in the Parish Center between the 8 AM Mass and 11 AM Mass.  The actual dates vary due to my rotation in the liturgy schedule.  But we do our best to make sure that is advertised appropriately in the bulletin and in our online calendar.  I find these videos to be excellent.  In fact, I cannot think of a better video series, yet published, that presents the Catholic Faith in such a holistic way.

The third area that I would like to recommend is our showing of movies of faith.  The first movie will be “For Greater Glory.”  This feature film illustrates the historical struggle of religious freedom in Mexico via the Cristero War.  Mostly downplayed in history textbooks, the events of the movie reflect the sacrifice of some 90,000 people against the anticlerical Mexican government of the time.  Pope John Paul II canonized over two dozen saints and martyrs of the cause.  More recently, Pope Benedict XVI beatified  José Luis Sanchez de Rio who is characterized in the movie.  Make sure to see the bulletin for details on dates and showings.  Make sure, also, that you recognize the language in which the movie will be shown, for there will be English and Spanish showings of the movie.  Also keep in mind that this movie is geared for adults.  Any children or teenagers who wish to be present must be accompanied by their parent/guardian or express permission must be given by such guardian for the minor to be present.  Other future movies may not have such a caution attached to them, and will be more oriented towards younger people.  Ultimately, our hope is that families will be able to attend as a group.  As it turns out, many of our teenagers have already seen the movie, and the story of Blessed Luis Sanchez de Rio has also been discussed at youth nights.  As such, our teens desire to help promote this movie.  So, do not be surprised to see some of our teens wearing black T-shirts with an image of child Blessed José and the acclamation, “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” which means “Long live Christ the King!”  They will be selling them as a fundraiser for youth activities.  If you have any suggestions regarding possible movies to show, please talk to Jessica Bubien, our Pastoral Associate.

May this Year of Faith encourage you to seek out opportunities to grow in your faith.  May it help you to proclaim the Gospel with your life.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor