My Dear Parishioners,
Are you ready for the election?  Do you know who to vote for and why you are voting for that person?  I hope and pray that you will not be voting for a political party, but instead, voting for the candidates who have proved to love God and their country through their words and actions.  We need all public leaders who call themselves Catholics/Christians to be true to God, and to their faith, so that they can better serve everyone in America, especially the yet-to-be-born Americans.  America was founded on, “In God We Trust, with liberty and justice for all.”  May we all see God in one another, in the born and the unborn, so that we can be people of life, love and service to God and one another.  Here is a prayer in English and in Vietnamese for you to pray before the election. 
God bless America, Fr. Hien

Prayer Before an Election:  Lord God, as the election approaches, we seek to better understand the issues and concerns that confront our city/state/country, and how the Gospel compels us to respond as faithful citizens in our community.  We ask for eyes that are free from blindness so that we might see each other as brothers and sisters, one and equal in dignity, especially those who are victims of abuse and violence, deceit and poverty.  We ask for ears that will hear the cries of children unborn and those abandoned, men and women oppressed because of race or creed, religion or gender.  We ask for minds and hearts that are open to hearing the voices of leaders who will bring us closer to your Kingdom.  We pray for discernment so that we may choose leaders who hear your Word, live your love, and keep in the ways of your truth as they follow in the steps of Jesus and His Apostles and guide us to your Kingdom of justice and peace.  We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen

LỜI NGUYỆN TRƯỚC KỲ BẦU CỬ: Lạy Chúa, trong khi cuộc bầu cử sắp diễn ra, chúng con đang cố gắng tìm hiểu thêm về những vấn đề và những mối quan tâm mà thành phố/tiểu bang/đất nước của chúng con đang phải đối diện, đồng thời tìm hiểu qua Phúc Âm phương cách ứng xử như những người công dân trung thành.  Xin ban cho chúng con đôi mắt sáng suốt để nhận biết nhau là anh chị em, cùng hiệp nhất và bình đẳng trong nhân phẩm và nhất là những ai đã từng là nạn nhân của sự ngược đãi và bạo lực, sự dối trá và nghèo khổ.  Xin ban cho chúng con đôi tai để nghe những tiếng kêu khóc của những trẻ em không được chào đời và bị bỏ rơi, những đàn ông và phụ nữ bị đàn áp vì chủng tộc hay tín ngưỡng, vì tôn giáo hay giới tính.  Xin mở lòng và trí chúng con để chúng con biết lắng nghe tiếng nói của các vị lãnh đạo, những người sẽ mang chúng con đến gần với Nước Trời.  Xin ban cho chúng con ơn khôn ngoan để chọn ra những vị lãnh đạo biết nghe theo Lời Chúa, sống theo tình yêu Chúa, và biết gìn giữ những đường lối của sự thật trong khi họ tiến theo bước chân của Chúa Giêsu và các Tông đồ, ngõ hầu hướng dẫn chúng con tiến đến Vương quốc của công lý và hòa bình.  Chúng con cầu xin nhờ vào danh Đức Giêsu Kitô, con Thiên Chúa và qua quyền năng của Chúa Thánh Thần.  Amen
 

My Dear Parishioners,
                Blessings from our Lord be with you all.  Please join me in loving our Lord and praying to our Blessed Mother Mary to watch over us, our families, friends, country, and the whole world.  We are in dire need of help from heaven so that we may be free from this pandemic to be a people of God who truly love one another, especially the unborn, throughout the world.  Every unborn person must have the right to life for God says, “Thou shall not kill.”  Every unborn person is like all of us:  beautiful, precious, and sacred.  Let everyone living in this blessed nation and throughout the world truly love one another---the born and the unborn.  Every human life matters to us - our families, communities, and the whole world.  Let us fight for one another, beginning with the most innocent persons--THE UNBORN.  Jesus loves them dearly and we must too.  A person who claims to believe in God or to have love for God, must also see God in every person, including the elderly, the unborn and the disabled and handicapped, etc.... God loves us all no matter who we are!
                All Saints Catholic School: Thankfully our All Saints students are doing very well since school has started.  They are learning and attending daily Holy Mass, also, two classes per day from Tuesday to Friday.  Please keep our students in your daily prayer so that they can grow in their Catholic faith and learn all that they can to be the best Catholics and students.  This week, please pray for the following students of our All Saints Catholic School.  Pre -K with Mrs. Beverly Kilian: Angelina Bramhall, Jacqueline Gonzalez Ramirez, Francisco Maldonado, Roman Mosqueda, Crystal Nguyen, Ethan Nguyen, Josephine Nkouga, Logan Pham and Rosalee Wheaton.  Kindergarten Mrs. Nancy Hansen: Sophia Blanchard, Jackson Bulson, Ava Eastman, Adir Hernandez, Ava Le, Jovany Lopez-Dominguez, Ivan Mosqueda, Kathy Nguyen, Emmanuel Nkouga, Daniel Pham, Anh Phung and Leonel Rocha. First grade with Mrs. Peggy Moore: Michael Abarca, Nicole Bramhall, Sofia Gonzalez Ramirez, Emma Huynh, Mylia Huynh, Marcos LeDonne, Apple Nguyen, Ryan Nguyen, Cindy Quiroz-Rocha and Elena Webb. 
We thank God and their parents for these beautiful children so that we can pass on our Catholic faith to them and educate them for the future.  Jesus loves our children, please love them too every day.  “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  Love you all, Fr. Hien

From: Bishop Carl Kemme
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:  With the upcoming elections, I wish to offer the faithful of the Diocese of Wichita some reflections concerning our responsibilities as faithful citizens of the United States.  I offer these words as your bishop with humility, praying that they will be an encouragement to all of us as we undertake the important exercise of our civic duties.  I thank you in advance for your kind attention.  We face today a country deeply divided by many issues that will wreak havoc and cause great destruction in our culture today if left for future generations to resolve.  Some of those most pressing issues include the following:  the denial of the right to life of the unborn, the increasing distance between the rich and the poor, the proliferation of addiction, the denial of religious liberties, a broken immigration system, the wounds of racism, the redefinition of marriage and the family, the imposition of capital punishment, and the concerns about climate change.  Because of this, all of us, eligible to vote, must do our part in participating in public life, to help us become a more just society, a community of persons where everyone has the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”   We do this by exercising our right and our responsibility to vote.  Many more of us, especially faithful Catholics among the laity, must step forward to offer leadership on all levels.  It behooves us as citizens and especially as Catholics to build up the earthly city, even though as St. Paul reminded us, our true citizenship is in heaven.  Jesus said in the Gospel, “Render unto Caesar…”  Voting and participation in public life is an obligation that we must accept and undertake seriously and with prayerful reflection.  Please vote!  Please get involved!  How do we determine to cast our votes on these pressing issues which we face?  This is an important question.  Put simply, although there is really nothing simple about it, we must vote with a well-formed conscience.  To that end, I want to encourage every serious and thoughtful Catholic to read and reflect on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ recently updated document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” which you can easily access online at the following link https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf.   This document and its new introductory note, which I will quote throughout this reflection, is worth reading. It spells out in great detail the importance of forming one’s conscience, which “is not something that allows us to justify doing whatever we want, nor is it a mere ’feeling’ about what we should or should not do.  Rather, conscience is the voice of God resounding in the human heart, revealing the truth to us and calling us to do what is good while shunning what is evil.  Conscience always requires serious attempts to make sound moral judgments, based on the truths of faith.” (#17)
                The bishops’ document further delineates the many issues that we face in the nation, about which the Gospel and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have much to say.  But among these issues, preeminently is the issue of LIFE and in particular the vulnerable life of the unborn, who have a special claim on our consciences because their life is innocent and defenseless and like ours is precious to God.   As we bishops say in the document,” the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family and because of the number of lives destroyed.” (#7)   The Gospel of Life and the unequivocal teaching of the Church that abortion in every instance is intrinsically evil, should be uppermost in our minds and in our hearts when we cast a vote for any particular candidate on the national, state or local level.  We need no further justification to disqualify any candidate from receiving our vote, who has taken a position to advance efforts to increase abortions on demand or who chooses to do nothing to reduce the number of abortions.  Why?  Because “a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, deliberately subjecting workers or the poor to subhuman living conditions, redefining marriage in ways that violate its essential meaning or racist behavior, if the voter’s intent is to support that position.” (#34)  The vote we should cast because of the issue of abortion, however, does not preclude us from considering other important issues, issues that I mentioned at the beginning of my reflections, such as poverty, racism, immigration, climate change and respect for creation, religious liberty, the economy, etc.   Why?  The reason is that we as Catholics must be committed to the “common good,” committed to solidarity with our sisters and brothers, especially the poor, the marginalized, the downcast, the stranger and others, so that a more just society will be created and available for all, not just for some.  Although that commitment must begin with the unborn, the teaching of the dignity of the human person at all stages and in all circumstances demands that our responsibility not end there but continue on through the whole of human existence and experience.  The task of voting is therefore a great challenge.  Many openly wonder for whom we as faithful Catholics can vote, given the positions of certain candidates and their parties that are in direct opposition to the teachings of the Church.  It is important to remember that no candidate asking for our vote today, even those who profess to be Catholic, perfectly aligns with the teachings of the Church as an integral unity.  This makes our participation in public life and the exercise of our civic duty even more challenging.  Even as challenging and unpleasant as it might be, we must nevertheless make our decisions in this regard in favor of the candidates who, because of our personal and prayerful discernment, we believe will do the best for the greatest amount of people in our society, with the life of the unborn uppermost in our intentions.  So, we must exercise prudential judgment on a deeply personal and individual level, knowing full well that all candidates and their parties fall short, some miserably so, from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Faith.  But we must nevertheless act in prudence.  “Prudence shapes and informs our ability to deliberate other available alternatives, to determine what is most fitting to a specific context and to act decisively.  Exercising this virtue often requires the courage to act in defense of moral principles when making decisions about how to build a society of justice and peace.” (#19)   To this end, I encourage us to pray for the light of the Holy Spirit, which will guide us in right decisions.  If we truly act under this guidance and with a well-formed conscience, we can be confident that our votes will be cast with moral certitude and right judgment.   Even though many might want or expect more specific direction from me, it is not my intention as your bishop to tell you who to vote for or who to oppose.  Private individuals may very well enter into partisan politics, but the Church and her teachers, bishops and priests must rise above partisanship and the endorsement of or opposition to individual candidates, even those who present themselves as more or less worthy of our Catholic vote.  Instead, it is my role, and that of our pastors and priests, to present to you, the people we serve, the unambiguous teachings which will help you form your consciences.    You and I must act in freedom and with moral certitude, out of our well-formed conscience but only after much prayer and reflection and cast the vote we know to be right and true before God. 
Why is this so important for each individual?  Because in the end, on judgment day, a day in our future that we must keep ever before our eyes, for “we know not the day nor the hour,” each of us  will be held personally accountable for all our moral decisions and actions, including our vote.   Once again from the bishops’ document, “In this statement, we bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote.  Our purpose is to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with God’s truth.  We recognize that the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election.” (#7)  And so, my dear sisters and brothers in Christ, let us embrace this moment with courage and determination.  Much is at stake and many depend on us to discern, to judge and to act rightly and morally.  Therefore, let us act always with a proper and well-formed conscience and with Christian and human integrity so that God will use our vote and our efforts to transform our society into a community of true justice and peace.  As Jesus often said, and as St. John Paul II reminded us when he assumed responsibility as the successor of St. Peter, “Do not be afraid.”  You will be in my thoughts and prayers in the next weeks as we exercise our freedom and responsibility to vote.   I would be ever so grateful for your prayers in return.  God bless and keep you all.                 Bishop Carl Kemme
 

My Dear Parishioners,
Welcome to the month of October.  It’s a special month for us Catholics throughout the world to love God and to honor our Blessed Mother Mary.  We all know how important God is to all of us.  It was God who gave us life and it will be only God who can give us eternal life in heaven.  Let all of us always trust in God, love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and worship God in the Holy Eucharist.  Recently, our Bishop encouraged Catholics to return to the Holy Mass so that we can really and truly become one with Jesus through Holy Communion.  Receiving Holy Communion is receiving God into our bodies, minds, and souls.  When we have God within us, all things are possible, including eternal life in heaven.  The grace and love of God will give life to all of us and to all people we live with and meet every day.  Please make every effort to return to Holy Mass for your good, the good of your families, friends, our country, and the whole world.  We need God in every person now more than ever before during this pandemic and the riots at home and throughout the world.  The virus is evil, and many people are acting evil everywhere.  We need to overcome evil with good, and only God is good--all the time, on earth as in heaven.  Please attend Holy Mass, everyone needs your love, prayers, and blessings from our Lord. 
Lately here at All Saints, we have had many elders attending our Holy Masses.  God bless them and God bless their love for Him.  People like them understand very well how important God is for them.  They are not afraid of sickness or death.  They touched my heart and I am sure they have touched many other hearts too.  Thank you for showing us how important God should be to all of us.  However, please remember that when you are under the weather, please stay home.  Don’t forget to keep our Mother Mary close to your heart throughout this month.  We need her intercession and prayers for us too, especially for those who are sick and for our beloved country as we are close to the election.  Mary loves America and she wants us to love one another, especially those who are poor, the unfortunate and the unborn. 
I love you all, Fr. Hien

PS:  Have you seen me on the billboards yet?  Thank you, to the Wichita Serra Clubs and Rusty Eck Ford for making me so public.  I hope & pray that everyone, including non-Catholics, would go an extra mile to love God and to do good for the salvation of souls like Jesus.  This is what I told my siblings, nieces & nephews: I’m watching.  Please slow down when you drive.  Don’t drink & drive.  Click it or I’ll tell momma (:

My Dear Parishioners,
How are you doing?  Are you enjoying this beautiful Kansas weather?  Let us be thankful for all the blessings God has bestowed upon us and our families.  Let us pray for all those who are not as fortunate as we are, especially the thousands of people on the West coast who have lost their homes due to the wildfires and to those on the East coast due to the hurricanes. 
Daily Mass: Everyone is invited to attend our Holy Mass at 8am from Tuesday to Friday, except when we have a funeral in church.  Beginning in October, our All Saints school children will join us for daily Mass, two classes per day, approximately 35-45 students total.  One class will be sitting on the East wing behind the piano area and the other class will be sitting on the West wing, close by the confessional area of the church.  All adult daily Mass attendees are to sit in the two middle sections of the church, in front of the altar.  I am looking forward to worshipping Our Lord with our children.  Please join us if you can.
Confessions: On weekends, I hear confessions before every weekend Mass.  Whenever you see me in the confessional or when the green light is turned on, you are welcome to enter one of the two stations for your confession.  Please do not wait until the last minute before Mass to enter the confessional.  Please keep in mind that I and everyone in church want to start Mass on time.  In the confessional, I posted the Act of Contrition prayer in English, Spanish and Vietnamese for your use.  If you forget how to go to confession, don’t worry, I will help you. 
Anointing of the Sick: Recently, the diocese informed all non-chaplain priests that we have limited accessibility to the hospitals due to Covid19, and it is rightly so, for the sake of everyone, especially the sick in the hospitals.  Here at All Saints, please know that I would love to pray with you and for you, especially before your surgery or your admission to the hospital.  Just let me know at any time, including before or after any Mass.  Also, do not forget that there are full-time chaplain priests in our Catholic hospitals, always ready to help you day or night.  If you would let the hospital know that you are a Catholic, a priest will visit you in your room.  If you need a priest ASAP, just let the hospital staff know, and a full-time, on-call priest chaplain will be there for you in minutes.  Ask and you shall receive, Fr. Hien  

My Dear Parishioners,
                Can you tell that we have been having more people come back to Holy Mass?  What a blessing to our church family.  God is most important to us.  Please know that I always enjoy celebrating Holy Mass with you, and I am certainly sure that our Lord, Mother Mary and all the angels and saints are so happy for those who love God and become one with God through the Holy Eucharist.  Let us never forget that the Holy Eucharist is the summit of our Catholic Faith; therefore, let us thank God for all priests throughout the world who celebrate Holy Masses for us, and to everyone who loves Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. 
                Blessings: Let us thank DeVorss Flanagan-Hunt Mortuary for another donation of $1,239.50 to our church after a funeral was held here in our church, that was 10% for the funeral service charge.  Thank you also to our many parishioners who kept our church and school grounds mowed and cleaned all summer.  Since June, a group of parishioners also removed and replaced two old pumps (one was custom made because it was too old) and valves in the boiler house.  They saved us over ten thousand dollars on these projects.  Recently too, we had many parishioners, sometimes as many as seven helpers, who removed old electrical wires and installed over 800 new LED light bulbs for our school buildings and gym.  Next time you are in our gym, you can see that it is twice brighter than ever before.  All the bulbs are rated for 50,000 hours.  These bulbs will last us over a decade for sure.  LED bulbs are amazing and are the best way to save energy and also manpower, since they don’t have to be changed so often.  Did you know that none of the bulbs in our church has burnt out since we put them in about two years ago?  Let us thank God for those men who served our church and school with the air conditioner and the light bulb projects.  They worked evenings and on weekends, including on Labor Day.  If you would like to donate toward the purchase of the LED light bulbs and the heating/air conditioner pumps, please let us know.  It costs around $8,300 (discounted price from Kansas Lighting) for all the bulbs and about $5,500 for the pumps and the insulation for the steam/cooler pipes.  All labor was donated.  Thank you also to our parishioner, Mark Rossillon, and his men from F&H Insulation Sales & Services, Inc. who cleaned all the windows in our church this past summer and also recently installed insulation on the pipes in the boiler house.   God is good and many people are very generous with their time, talent, and treasures--THANK YOU--Love you all, Fr. Hien

My Dear Parishioners,
                Blessings from our Lord be with you all.  Now that we are back to school and we are adapting to the new changes due to the coronavirus, I sincerely want to thank everyone for your patience and your open-minded understanding.  Patience is a virtue and being open minded is the most important concept for anyone living in America.  Living in America, regardless of where a person or his/her ancestors came from, such as their original culture, language, color of skin or religion, we must be open minded in order to see the beauty in others that God sees in all of us.  In other words, to see Jesus in them.  I personally believe that everyone, the old and the young, the healthy and the sick, the born and the unborn, the native Americans and the immigrants, we all matter, we are all precious and sacred.  That is what God sees in us all.  Let us love one another as our Lord taught us so that we may be with God forever in heaven.
                On Monday, September 7th, we celebrated our Labor Day.  It is a reminder to all of us that we are blessed living in America with our streets, homes, food, water, electricity, hospitals; we are blessed to have our farmers and servicemen and women, etc.… Everything we have comes from our labors--the work of one another.  We need each other for we all are contributors to our society.  Personally, I am thankful to those who built my truck so that I do not have to walk to see my family and I don’t have to walk for days and weeks to my favorite places for fishing and hunting.  Let us never take anyone or anything for granted.  Let everyone living in America continue making our country beautiful with our hearts, hands, and skills.  God bless America and all those who live to serve others, Fr. Hien
 

My Dear Parishioners,
How are you doing?  Thank God for a beautiful week, the weather has been much cooler, especially at night.  Let us allow God to lead us, to guide us and to love us every day, so that He can bless us with the everlasting life of heaven.  Please know that I am praying for you all-- your good health, peace of mind, your love for God and for one another.  Please join me in thanking God for all members of our church and school families.  This week, we are welcoming our children back to school.  We are blessed to have your children and your family at our church and school.  We are blessed to have so many new students this year, too.  In the near future, I will publish their names so that everyone can pray for them every day.  Please know that only with your personal care, love, and prayer for them can they grow in faith, hope, love, and intellectually.  Let us cherish them and hold them in our hearts.
New Weekend Mass Times will start this weekend, Saturday, September 5th at 12noon and 4pm; Sunday, September 6th at 9am and 10:45am (Vietnamese).  As you enter the church, please sit in pews that are designated for your Mass time.  Pews A—the signs are in red, for those who attend the first Mass of the day, that’s Saturday 12noon, and Sunday 9am.  Pews B—the signs are in yellow, for those who attend the second Mass of the day, that’s Saturday 4pm and Sunday 10:45am (Vietnamese).  Please do not remove the signs; they need to be posted until we are back to “the normal, normal.”  Please always practice physical distancing--six feet away from others, including in church.  We have added extra chairs in the back of the church for those who might need them during Mass.  As a church family, let us be mindful of one another.  Always keep in mind that everyone—old and young, those with walkers/wheelchairs and babies too, are in church to be with us to offer our prayers and worship to God, and to be a church family—God’s family.  Let us always be grateful and happy that others are joining us for prayer and worship.  Some of my most joyful moments at Holy Mass are to see and to be with you.  Together we pray and worship from our hearts.  And, yes, you are the joy of my life.  God is good and let us be good to one another, including in church. 
Peace & love to you all, Fr. Hien
 

My Dear Parishioners of All Saints Catholic Church & School,
Blessings from our Lord to you all.  Please know that I am praying for the safety and good health of our students, teachers, staff, and all of you.  Jesus told His disciples “do not be afraid.”  May you never be afraid of anything or anyone for you will always have God with you.  With God all things are possible.  I want to thank you for being members of our church family, especially with your time, talent, and treasure.  Please know that I love you and I love to worship with you.  I hope and pray that you will always feel good, happy and at peace after you have received Jesus and His many blessings from Holy Mass. 
Did you know that we are super blessed here at All Saints?  Two years in a row we have been able to pay the bills.  God and many good-hearted people, including our government, were good to us.  During this pandemic time, Mass attendance was low and financial contributions were very low too—there were weeks that we collected about half of the budget.  We received a $193 thousand COVID-19 grant from the government to use towards salaries and utility bills.  What a great aid to our church.  Moving forward, we need everyone to trust in God with their stewardship.  Please view the attached statement of your up-to-date contributions to our parish and the parish’s annual financial report.  Please keep in mind that Catholic education is not free but a privilege for families that are faithful stewards.  We are to be honest stewards.  A special thank you to families that have been faithful stewards during this pandemic time.  Thank you!  If you can use the direct deposit method, you will help us reduce our costs.  If you use other methods to give, please put them in the collection baskets during Mass, mail them, or put them in the drop box by the office door.
New Mass times: After I consulted with our office staff and a group of daily Mass parishioners, with their support, I decided to change our weekend Mass times beginning Saturday, September 5th.  New Mass times are on Saturdays at 12noon & 4pm in English, Sunday at 9am in English and 10:45am in Vietnamese.  The reasons for the changes are to better accommodate our parishioners.  During the summer months, Sunday 8am and 8pm masses are great because day light is longer; however, we are heading into the fall and winter months, when day light is short, cold/icy in the early morning and dark around 5pm.  Many elders are limited to driving in the dark and ice and many young children need their evening time for homework and early bedtime for the next school day. 
Beginning Saturday, September 5th, when you come for Mass, please sit in the designated pews for the Mass time you attend.  Section A is for those who attend Saturday 12noon and Sunday 9am Masses, and section B is for those who attend Saturday 4pm and Sunday 10:45am Masses.  Please know that no decision is easy, nor any method is perfect.  I apologize for any inconvenience due to these changes, including the Mass time changes.  I am grateful for your understanding and the many sacrifices you have made for the good of others.  God bless you and your loved ones with good health, many happy days together, heavenly peace and above all, the gift of heaven with our Lord when our earthly life is complete.  Holy God, we praise thy name.  Lord Jesus save us.  Holy Mary pray for us.  Holy Angels and Saints of God protect us from all sickness, harm, and danger.   Love you all---Fr. Hien

              
 

    

My Dear Parishioners,
                Blessings from our Lord be with you all.  Please know that we are preparing for the new school year.  Only God knows what the future will be like for all of us worldwide, including our Catholic school.  Let us trust in God and be open-minded to adjust to this new normal way of life with the COVID19 virus.  Some people have been asking me whether we will have school Mass once school is started.  My plan is yes, but not immediately, maybe a few weeks to a month after school has started.  My prayer and hope are that everyone especially our students and teachers will stay healthy and well-adjusted to the new academic year, then I will have them in church for Holy Masses.  My goal is to keep our children and teachers and especially our older parishioners safe or as safe as possible.  My plan is to have one or two classes per day for Holy Mass.  I will definitely seat them far/separate from the adult daily Mass parishioners.  For the time being, please keep praying for the end of the pandemic and for the safety of everyone, especially our church family.  Let us be safe, be smart and be thankful to God for all the blessings He has bestowed upon us, our families, and our church.  God bless our children and all those who love them and care for them, especially their parents and teachers.  PS. Parents and grandparents, one of the most important and special gifts that you can give to your children and grandchildren is the gift of Catholic education.  Catholic education provides an excellent education and the best formation of their bodies, minds, and souls that money can’t buy.  When our children love God, they will love you and everyone in this life.  Of course, they will be with God forever in heaven.  Today, let us give them the gift of Catholic education and formation through your faithful stewardship of time, talent, and treasure, so that we will always have each other in this life and forever in heaven.   Love you all, Fr. Hien