Faithful can subscribe to the notes by contacting the parish office and providing their e-mail address. Thanks for your support of our border town parishes!!!

Please remember - Fr. Pete does not send out text messages, e-mails or social media posts to solicit

funds for himself or any organizations outside of the parishes he serves. Fr. Pete's emergency phone

number is (815) 685-1359 and his e-mail addresses

are either pjankowski@yahoo.com or pjankowski@stfrancis.edu.

Please do not trust any correspondences that

utilize any other phone number or e-mail address.

Feel free to contact Fr. Pete at email pjankowski@yahoo.com. If you have an emergency, please contact Fr. Pete at (815) 685-1359

As you might recall, last month I celebrated the funeral Mass at St. Anne's Church for Lucy Houk, married 50+ years to husband Jack. Jack wanted to talk to me about becoming Catholic prior to the funeral but asked me to wait until after the New Year.

My homily last weekend was, in part, about Lucy's gift of motherhood. I gave Lucy's daughter Maria a link to that homily...

CLICK HERE TO READ HOMILY

FROM THE SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY FAMILY.

This week, Lucy's husband Jack was admitted to St. Mary's hospital in Kankakee. Daughter Maria was in bad shape - to go through this kind of suffering twice in one month is not good (once was difficult enough) - and she wondered if I could receive her father into the Church before he left this world. On Wednesday morning while Jack was on a ventilator, I baptized and confirmed him at the hospital. His outlook is not good but at least we gave Maria some peace (Jack too). No matter what else happens in the parish, by far, sharing the Lord's grace with you through the sacraments is the most important gift I can offer any of you, to allow God to work through me so grace can be shared with you.

By the way, after the anointing, I had to take the elevator down to the first floor to exit the hospital. A doctor and nurse were with me in the elevator. The doctor turned to me and said, "Are you using chrism at the hospital?" I told him I was (chrism is a mixture of olive oil and perfume; we use this oil for baptisms, confirmations and ordinations... and it has a distinctive smell). The doctor responded by saying, "I haven't smelled chrism since I first went to Church!" I kidded the doctor by saying, "Maybe you should go to Church more often!!!" So, at Mass this morning, I made a declaration, banning the use of lemons in Church (the one thing that cuts the smell of chrism). More good souls need to pay attention as to what we do and "smell" the Lord's grace a little more often!!!

As many of you know, Cookie is one of the "pillars" over at St. Anne's. Not only does she help lead the rosary prior to and serve as a lector at many of our liturgies, she also serves as a homebound communion minister and my personal "dog sitter," exhausting Gabby, as she runs around with Cookie's dog Beau (and sometimes her daughter's dog Banjo) and the cats Luna and Choo-Choo.

In addition to all of this, Cookie takes care of husband Ron, whose condition took a turn for the worse this week and was flown to Loyola Hospital in Chicago. So many of our families have these kinds of struggles to endure (I think about Judy Gall and Adrienne Gallinaro as two local examples) - couples do not focus on that "for better and worse, in sickness and in health" thing the first day of marriage. That said, to see how the Cookies and the Judys and the Adriennes offer their love to their respective spouses in this specific way allows me to understand how the sacrament of "sacrifice and suffering" reveals a kind of love that no one should wish on anyone but reveals the power of our Lord's grace passes through these very loving examples of "the domestic church."

PS Cookie wrote a text to me this morning, stating that Ron's condition has gotten worse, so please include Ron in your prayers as well.

The nicest complaint I received this year… a parishioner from St. Patrick's came to me at the Spanish Mass last Sunday when she was dropping off toys and coats for our needy parishioners (and to pick up the LAST of the eighty cases of sliced salami that Osvaldo & Jasmin Lozano picked up for us - ABOVE, Carmen Andrade was passing out the last of the salami at the end of last Sunday's 12:00 p.m. Mass) and told me that she could not find a parking spot because there were too many cars at church!

I said to her, “Isn’t that a terrible dilemma to have too many people going to Mass?”

She told me that we have to build a bigger parking lot - I filed that complaint with the parishioner who complained that I need to build another classroom building because we have too many kids in our religious ed program!!!

I wish all my complaints were of that variety... does anyone have a couple million dollars in spare change? (By the way, we distributed over $1,500 in checks and hundreds of boxes of food and necessities to those in the area this last month... we have gone CRAZY with Christian service!!!)

Speaking of which...

St. Pat's debt now sits at $125,000 after we received a $5,000 gift this week. This means that, over the last two years, we have paid off the diocese over $200,000 towards that debt through your wonderful contributions. Thanks to Ema Elvir, current business manager Julie Bisaillon and previous business manager Kathy Griffiths for helping us knock down that debt!

Speaking of Ema... our secretary ESPECTACULAR was reminding me of what we have to accomplish the next three months at the parish. This list certainly is not exhaustive (she never mentioned the Fish Fry outings at either parish nor the Stations of the Cross and other Lenten Activities). I decided to highlight a good number of these activities in my "Baptism of the Lord" homily (which you can watch below). Here is what is coming up at our parishes...

• This month, we continue with our Harbor House Collection for mittens, hats, gloves, socks and slippers. You can drop off your donations in the church. To learn more about Harbor House, CLICK HERE!!!
• Starting on January 15, we will be participating in the Nine Day “Rosary for Life” (in English & Spanish from January 15-23), ending with Rosary/Mass on January 24 (St. Anne’s at 5:00; St. Patrick’s at 7:00). Silvia Tajada will coordinate this program in Spanish for us. For more information about this Novena, please CLICK HERE!!!
• We will participate again in the Baby Bottles for Life program from Waterleaf Services in February. More information will be forthcoming. For more information about Waterleaf Services... CLICK HERE!!!
• On February 10, we will celebrate our annual Border Town Polka Mass & Appreciation Dinner. The Mass will be at 4:00 p.m. at St. Patrick's with the Appreciation Dinner to follow. All are welcome to attend - please RSVP at either office. To watch highlights from last year's event... CLICK HERE!!!
• St. Anne's Valentine’s Day Brunch with our Religious Education kids will take place after the 9:00 a.m. Mass on February 11. To watch highlights from last year's event... CLICK HERE!!!
• Our Season of Lent begins with our Ash Wednesday Services on February 14. At St. Anne's, we will celebrate an 8:00 Mass with the distribution of ashes and there will be a 5:00 p.m. service with communion and another distribution of ashes. At St. Patrick's, we celebrate Ash Wednesday Masses in English at 9:15 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. with a Spanish Ash Wednesday Mass at 7:00 p.m. I notice that in 2021, I offered an Ash Wednesday invitation to our faithful from the Annunciation Monastery in Minooka (my homily this weekend is based on their good work) - Fr. Dan Hessling has since passed but all the services remain the same at both parishes, so I resurrected the invitation from to years ago. To watch it... CLICK HERE!!!
• All Friday Spanish Masses in Lent will be switched to from St. Anne's to St. Patrick’s Church at 7:00 p.m. (following Stations of the Cross at 6:00 p.m.). We are still working on our Lent and Easter Page for the web, but to view our Online Stations of the Cross Service from last year... CLICK HERE!!!
• The Confirmation Retreat for our Religious Education Students will take place on March 2, 2024 at St. Anne's Church, culminating with a 4:00 p.m. Mass. We have no video highlights from our Confirmation Retreat in 2022, which gives us something to do in 2024!!!
• Twenty Students from Christendom College will be participating in a Mission at the Bordertown from March 2-9. You can hear what they will be doing at the Baptism of the Lord Online Mass below. To learn more about Christendom College... CLICK HERE!!!
• Our annual Irish Mass & Dinner will take place at St. Patrick's on March 9, 2024. The Knights of Columbus will cook and serve the dinner from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m., Bagpiper Brian McKee will lead us into and out of the 4:00 p.m. Mass at St. Patrick's and the Galway Guys/Girls will provide the music from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. To view last year's highlights... CLICK HERE!!!

Some of My Favorite things

This Advent & Christmas Season...

• Being gifted with so many unusual Christmas gifts, especially those of the hand-made variety. Jesse Childress was so happy that I put his "reindeer" ornament on my tree until he found out the priest took this gift from a St. Louis Cardinal Fan and put it on his Chicago Cub Christmas Tree! Hopefully Jesse will talk to me one day in the near future...
• St. Anne's Religious Education Kids celebrating their First Confession on December 9. This might be a small community but the community is very family-oriented and the teachers at St. Anne's do such a great job with the kids!
• Me celebrating Mass with the Poor Clares in Minooka (I am pictured above with Dominic & Augustine Fieramosca, my altar servers). The sisters have gifted our Border Town with lots of food, liturgical items and the chasuble I wore at the Masses for Christmas and the Holy Family.
• Taking pictures on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, with so many good parishioners. The Ojeda Family (Laura & Andres and sons Roman and Daniel) have video-recorded Masses and other services for us with the video system we have. They also do a great deal of ministry with Ruben & Carmen Andrade (also pictured), as well as Silvia Tajada and secretary Ema Elvir).
• Osvaldo & Jasmin Lozano driving to South Holland, IL to pick up EIGHTY cases of sliced salami for our respective food pantries in Kankakee, Martinton, St. Anne, Momence and Hopkins Park (among others). The Lozanos and the entire group from Camino y Esperanza (especially Ana & Eileen Rivas) have been a true blessing to our community in helping make it grow!!!
• All the unique gifts I received this Christmas Season, including (but not limited to) a St. Patrick Statue made from the corn husks of one the farmers in the area!
• All the "Gabby Gifts" that you all have given me (the "Gabby Pillow" and the "Gabby Sweatshirt" are pictured here. Gabby likes to monitor our "front row Catholics" to make sure that no treats drop from the pews during Mass (we are talking to YOU, Kathy Juriss-Bukowski and Cheryl Bremer!!!)
• You also see a picture of our one "House Mass" I celebrated for our faithful on December 28, 2023. It seems our boiler went out and we had no heat in church! John Cousin was nice enough to pay us a visit - it seems that the cost of repair would run about $2,000 (at one point, I think our boilers were held together by duct tape and chewing gum!). One of our anonymous donors was nice enough to take care of the $2,000. What a great bunch of parishioners we have!!!
• The Clerics of St. Viator (Brother Jhobany Orduz, Deacon John Eustice and Frs. John Peeters, Moises Mesh, Jason Nesbit and Pat Render) for helping our parish grow with your wonderful assistance!

Lorri Simpson and a whole bunch of nice people from our parish were able to help us raise $10,000 so that we could finish replacing all the windows at our facility. Last year, Van Drunen Farms and a few other folks were able to install the bulk of our gym windows and now we are finishing it up with a little help from Wally Martin, Bill Powers, and a few of our friends from Joliet. Between the $10,000 and some donations from our local groups to take care of the rest of that project (more on that later), we are able to finish this part of the project within the next month or two.

After this project and a renovation of one of our spaces to form a warming kitchen are completed, most of our renovation work in the gym will be done for the sake of the Momence Community. (The “big ticket items” that still remain will be putting Internet in the facility ($20,000), a generator for inclement weather ($20,000) and a $250,000 parking lot to help alleviate the problems on Hill Street.)

Thank you for your patience with us during this renovation. may God bless all of you!

Christmas Eve Mass in Spanish - Dec 24

Christmas Eve 3:00 English Mass - Dec 24

Christmas Mass at Dawn - St. Anne's

Christmas Online Mass at St. Patrick's

Three years ago, we came to realize that the task of plotting out our respective cemeteries would be quite a monumental task to accomplish on our own. To spend any kind of money for cemetery software or outsourcing this project to a for-profit agency would have been extremely expensive for our parishes.

I contacted Mr. Rich Tapella, who used to serve as Director for the Catholic Cemeteries Office for the Diocese of Joliet and currently serves as a funeral director for Farkus Funeral Home in Joliet (his brother is Fr. Joseph Tapella, the former Vicar General of the Joliet Diocese). Rich suggested we find a college student seeking an engineering degree to plot out our cemeteries; this would be good experience for an engineering student and would look good on that student’s resume.

We contacted Kankakee Community College and worked with student Ethan Fritz, who recently earned his bachelor’s degree in Engineering. Ethan laid out the cemetery plots for both St. Anne’s and St. Patrick’s and then handed the job over to Rich Tapella. Over the last few months, Rich was able to list the names of all 2,100+ souls in our St. Patrick's burial database and associate those names with the plots and actual locations of the gravesites.

Yesterday, Rich handed over this good work to Roger “Bones” Hess who, with the help of Kathy Juriss-Bukowski and Paul Bukowski, will tweak what Rich started. Because of the good work by so many, we now have a type of computerized database on an Excel spreadsheet that can help us organize who is buried where and help our family members and friends find the exact location of their loved ones whose plots are located at our cemetery.

Starting at the beginning of the year, Rich will begin the process of laying out St. Anne’s Cemetery in the same way. Neither Rich nor Ethan sought out remuneration for their work; we are so grateful to both of them for the Christian service they offered, as well as Bones/Kathy/Paul and the St. Pat’s Cemetery Staff as well as Jim Sparenberg over at St. Anne’s.

Have a safe and blessed New Year, everyone! On New Year's Day, we will offer Masses at St. Anne's at 9:00 a.m. and at St. Patrick's at 10:30 a.m. - Fr. Pete Jankowski

Pre-Christmas Festival on December 10 with Brass Sextet

Advent Reflection, Based on Gospel of Luke 1: 26-39

Watch the Las Mañanitas Liturgy at St. Patrick's Church on December 12!

Watch the Evening Mass from Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12!

ONLINE VIDEOS THIS WEEK

Mass for the Solemnity

of the Epiphany of the Lord

Celebrated at St. Patrick's Church - Momence, IL

Focusing on the gift of holiness, purity and innocence, Fr. Pete preaches about the good work of the Poor Clares at the Annunciation Monastery in Minooka, IL as well as the children and married couples of the parishes he serves. These individuals serve as the types of models of faith that our Lord offered from the nativity to the cross, the type of mercy and sacrifice we all are called to live.

Mass for the Solemnity

of the Baptism of the Lord

Celebrated at St. Anne's Church - St. Anne, IL

Referencing the work that twenty college students from Christendom College (Royal, VA) will be offering our Border Town Communities from March 2-9, Fr. Pete highlights all the wonderful services our communities offer in response to our baptismal calling and how our parishes will show these students the importance of "Going out to the world and teaching all that our Lord has taught us" (paraphrase of Matthew 28).

Homilia de Padre Pedro durante la Misa de la Sagrada Familia 31 Diciembre 2023

Recordado en la Parroquia de San Patricio - Momence, IL

For Catholic Daily Reflections (based on the scripture readings of the day),

CLICK HERE!!!

CLICK HERE to Access the Readings for This Sunday's Mass

From the Website of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops

One of our seniors has taken it upon themself to take courses on writing grants. The US Government offers millions of dollars of grants that are accessible for those who apply for them. Since both parish halls are seen as "Community and Emergency Centers" by our respective cities, we need help in getting generators and internet on our properties to help the cities... and us!!! ... in our efforts to serve the people of our area.

1973 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

1981 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

1986 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

1993 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

2004 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

2006 St. Patrick's Academy 100th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet

2010 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

2016 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

2023 St. Patrick's Church Photo Directory

1960s St. Anne’s Church Photo Directory

1970s St. Anne’s Church Photo Directory

1989 St. Anne’s Church Photo Directory

1998-2004 St. Anne’s

Church Photo Directory

2023 St. Anne's Church Photo Directory

For weddings and such, Fr. Pete offers a special blessing on the first Sunday weekend of each month and is willing to purchase an Apostolic Blessing for anyone who asks (and if he can afford it... since he pays out of pocket!!!).

If you are interested in receiving an Apostolic Blessing, you can do so by clicking the link below or by calling the parish offices.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR OWN APOSTOLIC BLESSING!!!

Fr. Pete offers the anointing of the sick at both parishes at the First Friday Masses every month (St. Patrick’s at 9:15 a.m. and St. Anne’s at 5:00 p.m. (English) and 7:00 p.m. (Spanish).

1. We will be taking down Christmas decorations on January 7th after the 12:00 p.m. Mass (St. Patrick’s) and on January 12th at 9:00 a.m. (St. Anne’s). Anyone who is able to help is most welcome to help us with this project.
2. Please feel free to take home the sanctuary poinsettias after Mass (those who attended the weekday Mass got first dibs on the poinsettias!!!).
3. Please consider donating hats, scarfs, socks and slippers to Harbor House in January. More information can be found in the bulletin.
4. For those who are wishing a 2023 Contribution Statement, please contact the parish office.

To View St. Patrick's Bulletin for

January 7, 2024



CLICK HERE!

To View St. Anne's Bulletin for

January 7, 2024



CLICK HERE!

PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR SICK: Mary Kay Blankestyn, Ashley & Jesse Childress, Guadalupe Maria De Leon, Austin Fuhrmann, Ron Gall, Joel Hart, Karen Hensa, Jack Houk, Joanne McCracken, Marilyn Peterson, Joanne Prather, Evelyn Provost, Ron Schroeder, Ruth Sparenberg, Cynthia Vickery, Gary Witherall... and all those on our sick list.

At St. Anne's... Eva Bell, Paula Bertrand, Lola Billings, Duane Blanchette, Cheryl Boswell, Patrick Burns, Cindy Capriotti, Abraham Daily, Tom Dandurand, Aria Dionne, Carol Futcher, Raelynn Garrett, Val Lagacy, Bentley Lottinville, Linda Miramontes and John Wojnowski.

At St. Patrick's... P. Anderson, N. Atkinson, R. Bailey, D. Barth, Beedle Family, D. Brown, W. Bukowski, B & E. Coffman, S. Conner, M & D Cousin, M. Cruz, A. Delaney, D. Demack, M. Dionne, J. Dobbins, E. Duke, D. Dunlap, G. Field, C. Fritz, R. Gall, J. Grill, R. Harper, J. Hibbs, D. Hiller, C. Jones, L. Kane, R. Kazee, A. Kijewski, L. Lee, L. Leranth, E. Lopez, B. Love, J. Marcotte, W. Marten, L. McNulty, L. Mercado, R & V Morse, C. Ortman, D. Petronio, M. Peterson, C. Piec, C. Provost, E. Provost, R. Rehmer, P. Reising, D. Roberts, B. Ryan, A. Schaff, J. Schopf. Schmied, K. Simpson, B. Siwicki, B. Spagnola, M. Tolbert, M. Tolmer, H. Tousignant, M. Velazquez, C. Vickery, M. Williams, M. Witherspoon, S. Young, A. Zimmerman, M & L Zink and G. Zokal.

PLEASE PRAY FOR BELOVED DECEASED: Frances Riley (sister of Evelyn Surprenant) and Martin Romero.

PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR EPIPHANY BIRTHDAY GIRL: Lorriane McNulty, who turns 150 on the Solemnity of the Epiphany (I can't remember how old Lorraine is, so I made a number up. Let's see if anyone reads this far down the Notes to notice...).

CLICK HERE TO READ

FR. PETE'S HOMILIES

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& Talent Form in English

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Cycle A Homilies - Cycle B Homilies

Cycle C Homilies