My Dear Parishioners,
Are you ready for August and for the new school year? Yes, it’s coming, and our teachers will be back to school soon to get everything ready for our children and for the new school year. Parents, if you have not registered your child/children for Catholic education, please do so. God entrusted them to you so that you may love them and raise them, especially intellectually and spiritually. All Saints Catholic School is here to help you in your children’s education and the formation of their hearts and souls. We can’t help you if you don’t bring your children to us. We are blessed with so many wonderful parishioners who have been so financially generous to our parish to provide Catholic education and formation. Thank you to all those who have made many sacrifices of their time, talent and treasure for the love of God and for this young generation. God bless your love and sacrifices. What are the new changes at All Saints? Church office: the main entrance door to the church office now is just north of the old entrance where everyone can enter to the church’s office safely with the handicap ramp and hand rails. Once inside the door, you’ll have a nice place to sit, wait and be served. Lana is in Father H’s old office; Sandy is in Lana’s original office and I am in Sandy’s old office. Please come by to see the new changes we have made and to visit us. We are looking forward to your visit, especially when you bring us homemade sweets 🙂. BTW, we like sweet fruits and not sugar sweets (I was told by Lana, Barb and Sandy, just kidding). Changes in the Church: The tabernacle is now at the center of our church between the altar and the crucifix. So many people have complimented on this new change. To make room for the tabernacle, I had to move the presider’s chair and the altar servers’ chairs to the sides. At the sides of the altar are sets of beautiful candles for Mass. In front of the altar are flesh flowers for our Lord donated by a group of Vietnamese parishioners. They do this weekly for our church and for the adoration chapel. The holy water container and the baptismal font have been moved to the east side of the church between the statues of St. Joseph and our Blessed Mother Mary. We surely want the Holy Family to watch over the person who receives the sacrament of baptism and their families and friends. Finally, there have been many deadly shootings nationally and locally; for the safety of everyone in church, the south doors will be locked at all times beginning August 1st. Anyone can exit through these doors at any time but cannot enter through these doors. Please enter our church through the main entrance doors. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding! We must do what we can to be as safe as we can or to prevent a bad situation. An evil person would have to break through the south doors to get in and of course everyone in church would know. If he/she was to enter through the main entrance, then more people in church, especially ushers, greeters and myself would see and do something about it. A few seconds might save hundreds of lives. We pray that nothing bad will ever happen to anyone, especially while they are attending church. Love you all, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Thank you for joining our church family and me last weekend for Holy Masses and being together in our parish hall for food, fun and fellowship. I was so pleased with the turnout and the plentiful food provided for us. I can tell that everyone was well-fed. Thank you for sharing your time and food with us. A special thanks to our Altar Society, Knights of Columbus and the Vietnamese parishioners for your hard work of preparing, cooking, and serving the food and also cleaning up afterwards. Everyone was very pleased with your food and enjoyed it tremendously. We will do this more often as a church family for I love food, and of course, I love being with you. Since I have been to All Saints, everyone has been so nice, friendly, supportive and wonderful to me. PLEASE BE THIS WAY ALL THE TIME. Thank you for your love and kindness! Personally, I love to be with you in church to worship our Lord. I always love to send you home with God’s blessings so that you may live in faith, love and peace. I enjoy greeting and visiting with people after Mass and learning about them and their families. Please continue to be personal with me. It will take me awhile to learn about you and your families. I am confident that we will continue to grow in our faith and love for one another. God is love and you have been wonderful to me. Thank you! PS. A personal thank to our Altar Society for the birthday cake and the birthday song everyone sang to me, just don’t forget that every day is my birthday 😊 How has your summer been? Too hot for me sometimes. Thank God for the recent rain. Summer is already half way past, have you taken your vacation yet? If you have not, please make the time to be with your family before school starts. Prior to coming to All Saints, I took my vacation with one of my sister’s family. She and her husband have three children, two boys and a girl. We went on a cruise from New Orleans, Louisiana to two vacation places in Mexico. I liked it and I would do it again. The kids loved the cruise more than anyone for they got to eat all day. We all gained some pounds from the cruise. We also got to fish in the river channel, and caught some fish and a bucket full of crabs. We used chicken quarters to catch the crabs. Sometimes we hooked three crabs at once. Of course, we cooked our fresh catch and had it for dinner. It was so good, and it was fun. So, please take a vacation and enjoy the goodness of life with your loved ones. Don’t forget to attend Holy Mass wherever you may be. Visit masstimes.org for Masses near your vacation places, or take me on your vacation and I’ll celebrate Masses for you. Don’t forget that I’ll take up a collection to pay for our church’s bills! haha just kidding---Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
How was your 4th of July celebration? Mine was great; I celebrated it with my family at one of my sisters’ house. Amazingly that night I slept like a baby in my own bed. The fireworks didn’t bother me. I must have been really tired from playing with my nieces and nephews. Become a Church’s Family: Becoming a church family is who we are at All Saints and only we can make it possible. We are to be together in Church to pray and to worship God. We are also to be with each other for our parish events. Please help our parish to become a church’s family with your faith, love and lives, for we are God’s family here at All Saints. I am looking forward to this weekend’s special Holy Masses to celebrate our Catholic faith and to be with you after every Mass in the parish hall for fellowship and food. I will be with you on Saturday night, Sunday mornings for breakfast and also for lunch. You are welcome to attend one or all of these events with me. This will be a great opportunity for me to know you and for you to know me and other members of our parish. Here are the details for this weekend: Saturday Potluck: Altar Society will provide chicken; everyone is invited to bring what you would like. Sunday Morning: Knights of Columbus will provide breakfast for everyone. After 9:30am & 11am Masses, the Vietnamese parishioners will provide Vietnamese food for everyone. I can’t wait to be with everyone and to enjoy great food. At 11 am Mass, Mass songs will be sung in Vietnamese. Church’s South Entrance Doors: For the safety of everyone in church. Beginning August 1st, these doors will be used for leaving only. Please enter through the main entrance. Thank you for your cooperation! Our parish leaders and I apologize for any inconvenience, please know that our goal is to keep everyone as safe as possible while attending Church. Sadly, our world is not a safe as it used to be. (Continued from last’s week) It was late April that Bishop Kemme asked to meet with me in person. Personally, I was not looking forward to the meeting because I was happy living in McPherson. My parishioners were so good to me. To be honest, St. Joseph of McPherson is one of the best places that a priest can ask for it has newer church, school and rectory. After six years there, I have learned where things were and I had a nice modern rectory to myself. I love to bike my yellow bike every day back and forth to church. I love to see the flowers and plants I personally purchased and planted. I enjoyed them every day and watered them every other day. I also could easily go fishing at Kannapolis, Maxwell Lakes or the Marion Reservoir. I also have hunting spots near McPherson, Lindsborg and Marquette. Moreover, in my conversation with our bishop, I learned that he really needs me to return to Wichita. I asked him, “Why me? The diocese has many wonderful and better qualified priests then me. You know that I would love to be in a country parish so that I don’t have to deal with financial shortage and city rules and regulations of running a school, etc…” Bishop said that he chose me because of my 18 years as a priest and also because of my Vietnamese background. I responded that I was ordained to do God’s will and not mine and if there’s a need of me in Wichita, then I must do God’s will for me. We ended our visit in great spirit for we knew that we were doing God’s will. Lord, I love and I will serve you, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners of All Saints,
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to everyone living in this blessed country. Our forefathers found our culture on God and committed themselves and the people of America to the Almighty God with the motto IN GOD WE TRUST. Today, let everyone give thanks to God and to always TRUST in Him. May the lighting up of the sky on the 4th be the signs of our gratefulness and love for God and our beloved country, the USA. Happy 4th everyone! (Continued from last week) It was on Good Friday, 2012; unexpectedly Bishop Jackels called me and said he would like to send me to St. Joseph in McPherson and St. Bridget in Lindsborg. I was surprised and didn’t know what to do. Bishop explained that St. Joseph has been going through tough financial situations due to their large debt of about 2.3 million dollars. They were hit hard by the downturn in the economy. To make the story short, I said to him, “Bishop, you know that I don’t want to deal with debt or run a Catholic school. I would take a country parish anytime.” He says, “I understand.” Finally, I said to him, “Can I think and pray about this?” He said, yes but don’t take too long; I could tell that he was surprised at my request. After we hung up, I reminded myself that I was ordained to serve and I must trust in God’s plan for me. Immediately, I called him back and he said, “That was quick.” I said, “Bishop, if you believe that this is what God calls me to do and that I can help the people of St. Joseph, I will do as you wish.” He was relieved and thanked me. I continued, ”Bishop, I can’t promise you that I can fix their financial problems but I can promise you that I will love God and the people of my parishes.” Six years have gone by and I was so blessed to be loved by so many people of McPherson County, especially the children. Together we paid off about 1.4 million dollars of debt. Now that I have been at All Saints for about three weeks, I learn that the parish usually holds a parish picnic in July. I was told that due to the extreme summer heat, the turnout has been low, it’s too hot for so many people especially the elderly parishioners. Also, I was told that the parish would like to have a welcoming event for me to All Saints. So, here is what we’ll do: On Sat, July 14th, after 4pm Mass, in the Fisher Center, the parish will host a potluck dinner for everyone to come and to be a church family. Our Altar Society will provide Fried Chicken for everyone, please bring a side-dish to share. On Sun, July 15th after 8am Mass, everyone is invited for a breakfast/brunch meal provide by our Knights of Columbus; and after our 9:30 &11 am Masses, the Vietnamese people will provide homemade fried rice, egg rolls and stir fry for everyone to enjoy. I would love to visit everyone in the Fisher Center after every Mass (no confessions before or after 9:30 am Mass on July 15). So, please join us for these special events of our parish, both days if you can. At the 11am Mass, a group of our Vietnamese parishioners and others will sing Mass songs in Vietnamese. Holy Mass will be said in English. Please help our church and school to be a church family full of love for God and for each other. Thanks, Fr. Hien |
AuthorFather Hien Nguyen Categories |
OFFICE Hours |
Telephone |
|
Parish Office: M-F 9am - 3pm
School Office: M-F 8am - 4pm |