Recently, Tom Weber and Dominic Parmantier discovered a treasure trove of documents and pictures from our parish history. As we move forward with our current Capital Campaign, I hope to reproduce some of them for the parish bulletin. Below is a picture of Monsignor McGrath with the original campaign committee. Long time parishioners will recognize many of the faces: Joseph Burke, Al Mullaly, Dick Yarington, John J. Dore, John Katona and others who built our beautiful church. We are grateful for the sacrifice and commitment of so many people who have bequeathed to us the buildings and property of Holy Family Parish. In some cases that support continues. For example, in our current campaign, we have received pledges from Al Mullaly (his letter to the parish is on the bulletin board) and from the daughter of Joseph Burke. That commitment should inspire the rest of us to make a sacrifice so that our church and other facilities will be preserved and improved for current and future generations.

I don’t have a picture of our current campaign committee, but it includes: Honorary Chairs Lou and Diane Tice, Ted and Sarah Naff, Nell Wheeler, Carlos and Trini Gonzalez, General Co-Chairs Bertha Galaviz Alcalá, Maribel LaForga, Dominic Parmantier, Helene Romero and John Walicki.

Last Sunday we completed a successful series of Campaign receptions. Over four hundred parishioners attended the various receptions. I want to thank the Reception Chairs: Betty Weller, Rogelio Rodriguez and Soledad Colmenares. Also, a big thank you to the reception hosts, especially the members of St. Martha’s Sodality, who provided much of the food and refreshments.

Next Sunday is Commitment Sunday. I ask all to join in praying that we will achieve the goal of our Campaign: Building a Better Parish. My goal is to contact all parishioners so that each family will have the opportunity to participate.

I want to take this opportunity to also thank you for your sacrificial giving each Sunday. On July 1, the beginning of the current fiscal year, we stopped having a two-bit collection every weekend so that we could concentrate on the first collection. Our collections did increase in comparison to the same time period in 2003: $280,236.68 vs. 266,205.63. In other words, we received about $14,000 dollars more in the last six months of 2004 in comparison with the same months of 2003.

A couple of final notes: This Wednesday (February 9) is Ash Wednesday. The full schedule of Masses will be found in another part of the bulletin. Also, only two weeks remain until the Fr. Corapi retreat. If you have not yet registered, please do so this week.