Monday, July 6, 2020
“Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer."
In Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, he reminds us to, “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer” (12.12).
 
I hope you were all able to enjoy our Independence Day Weekend. It was quite the way to end it today, with that powerful mid-afternoon storm:winds, rain and hail, bless the Lord! :)

When we look back on these last 3-4 months, who could have imagined all the challenges that we would have experienced? More importantly though, how we were able to overcome them and still accomplish all that we have. A beautiful reminder how our Lord still continues to shower us His blessings.
 
This pandemic has certainly consumed our world and has forced us all to change our way of life and adapt to doing things differently. This includes the Mass, reception of the Sacraments, parish ministries and group meetings, our own relationships with each other as a community, and distance learning in our school and the Faith Formation program.
 
In this letter, I want share with you some of the blessings that have taken place in these last 6 months in our community. Bear with me, as without writing a novel, I try to share these updates in some sort of logical sense:
 
2020 began with the addition to our staff of Sam Rita, our Director of Advancement (DA) at the school. His arrival in January was timely, as he was able to meet and get to know some of our students and community members before things shut down because of the pandemic. Those initial encounters in our community and with our friends were very important, as he personally reached out to those whom he was able to meet and more, to make sure that their families were doing well. If he had arrived just a month later, many of those relationships would not have occurred. I know that he is very much looking forward to seeing all of the families again this fall.
 
We were blessed to have social media pages established on Facebook prior to the pandemic, which many of our parishioners and school community members were aware of. This helped us to maintain communications, especially as we began to live-stream the Mass so that our families could still participate from home. It certainly wasn’t the easiest transition, but praise God we were able to do it right away after the church had to temporarily close its doors. It all started with a simple tripod and my cell phone from March through the first part of June. Since that time thought, we were able to purchase a “real” camera which was installed in the church space so that parishioners could see and hear the Mass better. I want to thank our CCW and Men’s Club for helping the parish to offset the financial aspect of that. Our next project is to put a camera in the chapel so I can do away with the cell phone altogether.
 
With the church doors now open again, we are not only bring families back to church again (averaging over just 100 people each Sunday morning with many more still viewing from home), but we have also been able to get the sacraments flowing again and were able to celebrate our ten 8th graders who graduated and are now preparing to enter into high school. Three young men, Theophilus, Cody and Stephen, were received into the Church on Sunday, June 14 ( Corpus Christi ). Fifteen of our students received Jesus for the first time in the Eucharist on June 20 and June 27. Such excitement and joy from them all, especially the family members. And right now, plans are in place to get our Confirmation Students Confirmed this August! Oh, how His graces flow!
 
We’ve seen an increase from our younger parish members who have stepped up to fill holes in our ministries to help keep the church doors open. As many of you know, in order for us to open the doors of our church, we needed to make sure we had a protocol in place to do our part to keep everyone as safe as possible. This meant that more ministers to assist us regularly, at each Mass, no longer just on Sundays. You, ministers, are a gift to our community, as without your presence the rest of our community would not be able to return to the church to pray the church. Thank you!
 
Back to our school: through the grace of the Holy Spirit, our staff and families were able to transition and implement into Distance Learning back in March when things began to shut down. This included creating online lessons and preparing homework/lesson packets to be picked up regularly at the school. This transition was successful, though challenging, because of our dedicated and talented Presentation teachers and staff. However, without the commitment of our families, none of this would have been possible. This successful collaboration between our parents and educators is what allowed Presentation School to prevail. I personally know that our school was able to provide this service a lot sooner than many of our neighboring schools, which I hope you appreciated. This helped our students not just to survive academically, but also helped them to thrive. And trust me when i say that I also know that distance learning was also a challenge for some of our students.
 
As we look toward to the rest of summer and prepare for the new academic year, we continue to count our blessings. Through prayer, we have a new Principal who joins us this week. Mrs. Sue Lovegreen has already been working with the Presentation leadership team, our strategic partners and following CDC guidelines to make sure our Presentation community continues to make our children and their safety a priority. She has a wonderful history of positively unifying a school’s education and community. Communications have already been sent out for an opportunity to meet with Sue prior to the start of school. She is really excited to meet our families and staff.
 
Additionally, this past month an opportunity came up for our school in which we had a week to respond and apply for. The Schulze Family Foundation opened up a summer challenge grant to all Catholic Schools here in the Archdiocese. Recognizing that the pandemic has caused a lot of financial hardships on our Catholic schools, they wanted to find a way to help schools prepare for the start of the new school year. Well, we applied for it and were informed that we are a recipient of this grant!
Please click on the following link to see how you or someone you know might be able to help us meet this challenge: https://canva.me/r3bKzihiR7 . How good God is!
 
“Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer!”
 
Those things mentioned above are a great reminder how God is in our midst and continues to walk and provide for us. Our future is bright. Stay close to Jesus and don’t forget to bring Him into our world, where He desires all of us, His children, to be one. May we have the courage to respond to His love.
 
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!
 
Fr Peter
Pastor  
Public Mass Times where the faithful are invited to attend in the church:
Sundays at 9:30am, Wednesdays at 8:00am and Fridays at 8:45am.
Non-Public Mass Times where the faithful are not invited to join in the Chapel: Tuesdays & Thursdays at 8:00am and First Saturdays at 9:00am and Saturdays at 5:00pm.
All Mass times will continue to be live streamed on our Facebook page.
 Faith Formation
Confirmation families , an email was sent out informing you of the following Confirmation Date for your student(s). If you find that the date does not work for your family, please contact Fr Peter as soon as possible so he can schedule another time for you.
Confirmation Date: Sat, August 8th @ 5pm.
The Parish Pastoral Council Needs You!
We currently have four vacancies on our Parish Pastoral Council.
If you feel a calling and would like to support our Parish as a member of the Council, please contact Fr. Peter for an application and any questions.
Deadline for applications is July 15, 2020.
Drive-Thru Hours
For the time being, I will not be having Drive-Thru/Reconciliation on Saturdays as we return the Saturday evening Mass to 5pm. Please plan to come at another time or call to make an appointment.
Tuesday-Friday 4:00-4:45pm
 Eucharistic Adoration
Monday-Friday: 2pm-12am
There is a 7pm Friday adoration hour that needs an adorer. If interested, please contact the parish.
Limited to 4 adorers at one time .
Pastoral Care
Presentation of Mary is here for you!
Conversation, prayer requests, resources...? Please ask.
All information will remain confidential.
Contact the Parish Office at 651-777-8116 or Mail@PresentationOfMary.org .
Stewardship
Amidst this pandemic, I have been very edified by the generous outpouring of love and support from our community . Thank you!
If you would like to switch over to e-giving, click on the image to sign up.
Questions? Please contact Jennifer or Sue: 651.777.8116 or Mail@PresentationOfMary.org
Presentation of Mary
on Facebook?!
Live streaming of the Mass,
as well as see what the community is up to.
*non-users can still view videos.
Presentation of Mary
on YouTube, too?!
Please subscribe to our YouTube channel!
Catholic Services Appeal
The Catholic Services Appeal is still in need of your support to serve those many ministries that not one community can do on it's own, all the more during this pandemic. Please prayerfully consider contributing to this Appeal.
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