Stewardship letter from Fr. Hien: My Dear Parishioners of All Saints Catholic Church and School,
     Yes, you are dear to me and to everyone in our church’s family, especially our students.  We rely on your love, prayers, and stewardship to keep our church and school going for the good of everyone and the salvation of all souls.  We are called by God to love and to help each other get to heaven through our stewardship way of life.  Please join me in living out our Catholic faith joyfully, happily, graciously, and even sacrificially as alive disciples of Jesus Christ. 
     GIVEN is the stewardship theme this year for us to imitate Fr. Emil Kapaun in his faithful service to God for the salvation of souls.  Father did so by being Jesus to his fellow men with his care and love.  He sacrificed his life for them by feeding them, bathing them, washing their cloths, and most importantly, praying with them to send God’s blessings into their hearts, minds, and souls when they were so depressed, exhausted, and sick to death.  Yes, they survived the prisoner camp and called Fr. Kapaun a walking saint.  Today, I hope that you and I are striving to be like Fr. Kapaun before God, our families, and friends.  Yes, it’s possible because God is helping us.  We can walk in the footsteps of Fr. Kapaun with our sacrificial love in the stewardship way of life.   
     Lovingly, I am encouraging you and your family to commit yourselves to Jesus by keeping the Lord’s Day holy to receive the Eucharist as often as you can.  Jesus is our source of life and He’s our only way to heaven.  Also, I want to thank you for being members of our church family, while many Catholics have chosen not to register in a parish or to be active in their Catholic faith.  Registering in a parish and practicing stewardship of time, talent, and treasure are duties of every disciple of Christ.
     Since the pandemic started, All Saints has suffered from low Mass attendance and contributions (we are blessed with more students attending All Saints), and at the same time, we have to pay all the bills from salaries to utilities, etc.…  To be just and fair with our employees, earlier this year, I gave a 3% raise to most of them.  They were very appreciative with the little we gave them so that they could sustain their families and pay their bills.  All Saints is blessed to have them among us for I know that they are here to serve God in our students.  Unfortunately, the cost of a Catholic education is high due to the many old buildings we have.  Our buildings’ insurance alone is about $50,000 per year, this does not include age and deterioration upkeep.  Last winter, we had two main water lines break that cost over $10,000; last March our gas bill alone to keep our many buildings warm at 50 degrees was $15,500.  Please know that nothing in life is free, including Catholic education which includes salaries, healthcare insurance, city permits and inspections, etc...  The diocese requires that every family must tithe to the parish.  17% of your contribution goes to the diocese to help with other ministries in the diocese and in the world, what’s left must pay the bills at All Saints.  If you are tithing 10% of your whole family income to our parish, you are not obligated to give to other charities.  Please help our church and school so that we can continue educating and forming God’s children at All Saints.  Anyone can tithe, including fixed income individuals/families.  Recently and sadly, I had to reject a school family due to their failure to tithe and contribute.  Please return your pledges by Sunday, December 19th.  Time and talent forms are in the foyer.  Use direct deposit method for your tithe to avoid additional cost to the parish.
     By now, I hope that you know that I love All Saints and I know you do too.  Would you consider linking your Dillons’ Card to All Saints so that we can benefit from donations from Dillons?  You will not lose your points from Dillons.  Also, please consider naming All Saints as your/your loved one’s memorial.  DeVorss Flanagan-Hunt Mortuary gives 10% to All Saints when someone refers All Saints.  You can also eat out less often for the sake of our students.  I love you all and am thankful that you love Jesus with me.  See you at Holy Mass to love the only One who can give us eternal life—Jesus.

My Dear Parishioners,
     Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  Please give thanks to God for each other every day, including your deceased loved ones.  Every one of them belongs to you on earth as it will be in heaven, just like every part of your body belongs to you.  Please be sure to see Jesus in your loved ones, so that you may enjoy them over Thanksgiving with many wonderful and tasty meals.  I will surely enjoy my Thanksgiving because I am blessed to be at All Saints.  Again, everyone is invited to our Vietnamese Mass at 5:30pm on Wednesday, November 24th to celebrate the Vietnamese Martyrs, and the Thanksgiving potluck after Mass.  Bring a dish to share if you can.
     This weekend is the Last Sunday in Ordinary Time.  We will celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  Please know that Jesus, who is God, loves everything He created, especially all of us, human beings, born and to-be-born alike.  We must love Him and want Him to be our Lord and Savior.  We must allow Him to rule over our bodies, minds, and souls.  Jesus is King for He alone conquered the power of evil--sin and eternal death.  He destroyed death and restored life in you and in me so that we may live today with Him and for Him alone.  His resurrection is evident to the world.  For this reason, Catholics throughout the world are obligated to attend Holy Mass every Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection, and His ascension to the Father.  Of course, we are also to give thanks to God for He created us, and blessed us with all things in the world, especially each other.  God also has prepared a place for all of us in heaven to enjoy the perfect life of heaven with Him.  So today, please don’t live to eat and to drink, and to get drunk, but live each day with each other and for the salvation of one another as Jesus did for all of us.  Yes, in this life, we all must eat to live but we don’t live to eat.  We live for God alone.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YEA ALL, FR. HIEN

My Dear Parishioners,
     Blessings from our Lord be with you all.  Please remember to pray daily one Hail Mary for each person in your family, especially for your deceased loved ones.  They need our constant love and prayers.  God can do miracles when we put our trust in Him.  Many of our All Saints students and teachers and staff have written down the names of their deceased loved ones and placed them in the baskets sitting by Jesus’ statue, in front of the altar.  These names and petitions will be prayed for by everyone, especially the celebrating priest at every Mass throughout this month.  Jesus is ready to bless our prayers for the salvation of all souls.  God never wants a soul to be lost, neither do we.  So, please don’t give up loving and praying for your loved ones, especially your departed loved ones at Holy Mass.  They will never be lost if today you would pray for them.
     Finally, Thanksgiving is coming, let us prepare ourselves to celebrate it with love and thanksgiving to God and to one another.  Wednesday, November 24th is the liturgical feast day of the 118 Vietnamese Martyrs.  On that day, we will have our normal 8am Mass, plus a special 5:30pm Vietnamese Mass to celebrate the Vietnamese Martyrs.  After Mass, we will have a potluck dinner in the Fischer Center.  Everyone is invited to join us for Holy Mass as well as for the potluck dinner.  Please bring a dish to share.  On Thanksgiving Day, November 25th, we will have our normal 8am English Thanksgiving Day Mass with music.  Thanks be to God for all the love and blessings He has bestowed upon us, our families, and beloved country.  Love you all, Fr. Hien
 

 A message from Bishop Kemme on “Value Them Both.”
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
     I have always thought that among all the physical disabilities, being blind would be the worst.  Consider how life would be so different and challenging, not being able to see in order to move freely and safely or to see the faces of the ones we love or the many beautiful things in creation, like a sunset or sunrise or a mountain or landscape.  Life would be shapeless and colorless; our world would be darkness.  Such was the case with the man in today’s Gospel, Bartimaeus, that is until the day the Lord passed his way.  In this encounter, which we heard so clearly in the Gospel, Jesus cured his blindness, but even more than that gave him the light of faith, for having been given back his sight, he immediately followed him on the way.  He became not just a man with restored sight, but a disciple, who spent the rest of his life no longer on the roadside as a beggar, but now a disciple on mission with Jesus.  Like Bartimaeus, we too come to the Lord this day crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on us.” And “Master, I want to see.” Why?  Because so many of us come with degrees of spiritual blindness, often unable to see the goodness of God in ourselves, in the world and in others. If we allow Jesus to touch us, as surely as he desires to, we will be restored to see the unmistakable presence of the Lord in our lives, in the Church he founded and in each other.  But let me speak now of a particular blindness that grips so many in the world today, the blindness to the dignity of the human person, especially at his or her earliest stages, the life of the unborn.  So many in our society are blind to the reality that the unborn child is just that, a person, one created in the image and likeness of God, with inalienable rights and inherent dignity.  Many see the unborn child as problem to be fixed or a difficulty to be overcome.  The abortion industry, the greatest evil of our world and the greatest enemy to God’s creation exists to eliminate this so-called problem by the willful killing of unwanted, unborn children, all to the number of nearly 1 million each year in the United States.  So, we can see how blind so many are to this and the unspeakable loss of so much human life as a result. 
     Between now and next August, we here in the State of Kansas have an opportunity to do something about this by the passage of the Value Them Both Amendment to our state constitution.  This is an incredibly important amendment that will restore much if not all of the pro-life legislation so many have worked so hard over the past five decades to get passed, legislation that for all intents and purposes has been rendered unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court’s 2019 decision enshrining the right to abortion virtually in all circumstances.  While the passage of Value Them Both does not ban abortion completely, it does return the abortion industry in our State of Kansas to important oversight and regulation and will thus save thousands of children from being aborted and protect their mothers by ensuring such things as parental notification, clinic licensing, restrictions in the second and third trimester and informed consent.  These are critically important protections that save lives. 
     As your bishop, I am asking each of you and all people of good will to prayerfully reflect and consider the Value Them Both Amendment.  We need each of you to get involved and to speak to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers about this amendment.  We need all of you who are eligible to vote to go the primaries next August and vote YES to Value Them Both.  And we need your financial support between now and then so that all the pro-life organizations including the Kansas Catholic Conference can continue this important work of getting Value Them Both passed.  You should have all received an appeal letter from me this past week.  I hope you will join me in being extra-generous so that we will have the necessary funds to combat the abortion industry which will bring far greater resources to defeat this amendment.  St. Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of the concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland during World War II once said, “The deadliest poison of our time is indifference.” Indifference is a kind of willful blindness of some that refuses to see what is clearly in front of them.   I pray that in this life changing and life saving effort, Value Them Both, none of us will be indifferent or blind to the needs of the unborn and their mothers, but that we will see them as our brothers and sisters and use our voices and our votes to help them survive the evils of the abortion industry in our society.  We can do this!  All we need is a simple majority to vote Yes to Value Them Both.  Will you join me in this effort? Thank you!