My Dear Parishioners,

   About six months ago, I met with members of our parish council and the finance committee.  Many were present but no Vietnamese parishioners.  One of the subjects we talked about was Mass attendance.  Although we are blessed with a large church that holds over a thousand people, our four weekend Masses are only about twenty to thirty-five percent full at each Mass.  Technically, our church is big enough to hold everyone in one Mass.  My suggestion was to eliminate one Mass or to have one Mass in Vietnamese.  Since I have been here, many Vietnamese parishioners have asked for this.  We have many Vietnamese Catholics in our church and school.  A third of our 1,616 members are Vietnamese.  Sadly, we have lost about 600 families in the past decade due to different reasons, situations and circumstances. 
   Today, All Saints is a multi-cultural parish with a large number of Vietnamese who love our church and school.  At one point in the meeting, I left the room for about 15 minutes so that parish members could talk openly about my suggestions.  When I returned, they voted to have one of our four Sunday Masses be in Vietnamese.  I informed them that I must visit with Bishop Kemme for his approval.  A week later I met with Bishop at the chancery.  He then called a special meeting with the Diocesan Vietnamese Council (DVC) (Fr. Ben Nguyen is the chairman and Vietnamese representatives from most parishes in Wichita are members).  Four days later, the meeting was held at the chancery.  Everyone strongly suggested to Bishop that there should be another Vietnamese Mass in the diocese to serve not only the spiritual needs of All Saints’ Vietnamese parishioners, but also those Vietnamese in other parishes who might wish to attend Mass in their own language.  For many years throughout the diocese, including most parishes in Wichita, there have been Masses in Spanish but only St. Anthony has Vietnamese Masses. 
   On Sunday, November 24th at St. Anthony of Wichita, on the celebration of the 118 Vietnamese Martyrs, Bishop Kemme announced to everyone that there will be Masses in Vietnamese at All Saints.  Our first Mass in Vietnamese will be on Christmas Eve Mass at 6pm.  Thereafter, one of our four weekend/Holy Day of Obligation Masses will be in Vietnamese.  The reason to wait until Christmas Eve for the change is to allow time for adjustments.  So, yes everyone is welcome to any of our Masses to fulfill the Sunday obligation - three Masses in English and one in Vietnamese.  Do you know that it will be a challenge to me to use two languages in one weekend?  Do you know that reading, writing and speaking English is hard enough for me; but to read, write and speak Vietnamese is harder?  After my third grade in Vietnam, I skipped many years of schooling to look for food to feed my family.  I started learning A, B, C at North High of Wichita and continued learning English in my 9 years of seminary colleges.  I am 47 years old—a slow learner in languages; however, I trust that God will come to my aid.  God has been good to me ALL-THE-TIME.  Thank you--Jesus, Fr. Hien

Stewardship:  Please complete & return your forms to the office before December 15.  Thank you! 
Parish Penance Service:  4pm Sunday, December 15th with guest priests: Ben Nguyen, Doug Campbell, Eric Weldon, Curtis Hecker, Paul Oborny, and Dwight Birket.  All confirmation students are expected to attend and to have dinner with guest priests in Fischer Center.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone,
 
   Blessings from our Lord to all of you as you are celebrating this special time--THANKSGIVING--with your families and friends.  If you are reading this message before Thanksgiving Day, please join us for Thanksgiving Mass on Thursday, November 28th at 8am.  Wherever you may be, please be thankful and always be safe in your travels.  Most deadly accidents and serious problems can be avoided if we all follow the traffic laws and are patient with each other.  Also, please remember to attend Holy Mass by visiting Masstimes.org for Catholic Masses near your traveling locations.  Can we ever be too busy for God?
 
   We thank Bishop Kemme, who came to us on Friday, November 15th to celebrate Holy Mass for our children and bless the statue of our Lady of Guadalupe for us to use in our church.  May our Blessed Mother Mary keep us close to God and to each other now and forever.  Did you know that we pray for our bishop by name at every Mass and for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, too?  They always need our love and prayer so that they can minister to God’s children throughout the world with Jesus’ love for all human life from conception to natural death.  Every person in the world, born or yet to be born, always needs to be loved by us with blessings from God.
 
   Please keep the follow All Saints students and teachers in your daily prayer.  2nd Grade with Mrs. Samantha Somes: Neal Atsou Dzini, Nolan Atsou Dzini, Yenna Chang, Katherine Diaz, Jennifer Do, Jennifer Thi Do, Michael Eastman, Aria Henry, Joseph Le, Dawson Lippert, Eva Loveall, Baylee Medicus, Ailyn Mora, Kathlene Navarrete, Alan Nguyen, Hoc Nguyen, Jonathan Pham, Lucia Rolfe-Murray, Jocelyn Stewart, Jenna Thompson, Emilio Vargas, and Ian Wheaton.  3rd Grade with Mrs. Nancy Clark: Christopher Bramhall, Anthony Bui, John Do, Olivia Florentin, Caleb Guzman, Beyonca Irwin, Alejandro Jimenez, Minh Le, Diem Quynh Mai, Zemirah Melton, Daniel Miller-Rodriguez, Ariel Moreno Avila, Brayden Pham, Jamal Rolfe-Murray Jr and Olyve Tajchman.
 
   Finally, let us enter the new liturgical season of Advent full of love for the Holy Trinity so that we will enjoy the fullness of joy, peace, love and the blessings from God to us in the person of Jesus at Christmas.  Beginning this Sunday, our Mass readings will be taken from Cycle A.
 
   PS:  Due to the many Vietnamese in our parish, Bishop approved that one of our 4 weekend/Holy Day of Obligation Masses will be in Vietnamese beginning with Christmas Eve Mass.  More details in next week’s bulletin.  
 
   Always love you all, Fr. Hien
 

Fr. Hien’s Stewardship Letter, 2019
   My All Saints Parishioners: Blessings from our Lord and God be with you all.  Thank you for being a member of our church family.  We are blessed to have you in our church family.  I am happy to be at All Saints to serve God and His people.  I love Jesus and I know that you love Him too.  Let us become one with Jesus in His Holy Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity at Holy Mass.  With Jesus, we will live with God now and forever. 
   As Catholics in the Diocese of Wichita, we are to be Jesus’ disciples with our time, talent and treasure.  Together, we will carry out the mission of All Saints’ Parish:  All Saints is a diverse Roman Catholic community, centered in the Eucharist, guided by the Holy Spirit, nurturing one another through friendship, prayer, education, service and stewardship, on the journey with Christ to the Father.  Bishop Kemme, the parish leaders and I are asking for your stewardship commitment to our parish.  We are dependent on your ministries and generosity to continue educating our children, to pay the bills and to keep up our old church and school buildings.  The parish will tithe 10 percent of your financial contribution to the diocese toward the education of seminarians for the priesthood, like Fr. Matthew Siegman of our parish, to feed the poor in the world, etc...  If it’s possible, would you consider tithing 8-10 percent of your family income to our parish like the diocese suggests.  The parish needs about $27,000 a week to pay our bills (the first 10% tithe to the diocese plus the 7.5% to support the Catholic high schools in Wichita, about 80% pays for our All Saints’ Elementary school and our high school students attending Catholic High schools).  As you can see, we don’t have much for the upkeep and updating of our church and school buildings.  Last year, we were able to pay all the bills, thanks be to God and to you.  Many people volunteered in our church and schools and about 30% of our parishioners gave beyond their normal tithe to help with our building funds.  Today, we are hoping and praying that every family would tithe a percent to our parish, whether it’s 10%, 8%, 5%, we would greatly appreciate your commitment for the salvation of souls.
   Please complete your stewardship form and pledge and return them to us by Sunday, December 15th so that we do not have to contact you by phone to remind you.  You can place it in the collection basket, send or drop it by the parish office.  If you have a bank account, please consider completing the orange sheet for the direct deposit method to cut the costs of collection envelopes and mailings.  There is no cost to you for using this method.  Please avoid putting cash in the collection basket.  All cash should be in an envelope with your name so that we can record your donation for your tax-purposes. 
   Please join me, our parish staff, teachers and leaders in carrying out our parish mission.  Let us make it a reality in our church and school so that others will know that we love them for we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.  Thank you for opening your hands and hearts to welcoming everyone to All Saints, regardless of their race, color, language, culture, background, health condition, etc.…
   Finally, may our Lord bless you and your family with a happy Thanksgiving full of love and life for each other.  The parish penance service with guest priests – Fr. Dwight Birket, Fr. Ben Nguyen, Fr. Eric Weldon, Fr. Curtis Hecker, Fr. Paul Oborny - will be Sunday, December 15th at 4pm in church with adoration and confessions.  WAM—Wichita Adorers, singers will lead the adoration music/program.  All our confirmation students and their parents will join us too for adoration, confession and dinner with guest priests.  Have a Holy Advent that leads to a Merry Christmas everyone.  Love you all, Fr. Hien

My Dear Parishioners,
 
   Winter has come early this year.  We can only hope that we will not have too many of the extreme cold days this winter.  Please God!  Personally, it was so good to see so many people attend our All Saints’ holy day of obligation Masses.  May all the saints in heaven pray for us until we are all in heaven with them.  Loving God and imitating the lives of the saints is who we are.  We will have them with us now and forever.
 
   Special thanks to all those who made it possible for us to celebrate our All Saints’ feast day with so much delicious food and fun together as a church family.  I was so shocked to see so many people for the dinner.  It was so fun, and we all went home happy and satisfied.  May our Lord bless you all for you have shared your life, love and food with us.  We are blessed to have each other.  Thank you everyone. 
 
   God Bless Our Confirmation Students:  Last Sunday at our 9:30am Holy Mass, our confirmation candidates and their sponsors participated in a special ceremony.  Our students made their commitment to their Catholic faith.  As a church family, we promised them our love, prayer and support as they journey toward the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation on March 7, 2020, by Bishop Kemme, in our All Saints’ beautiful church.  Please keep them in your daily prayer: Chelsea Callejas, Sasha Cash, Jennifer Dao, Tina Dao, Travis Do, Hunter Huddleston, Laura Le, Minh Le, Michael Ludlam, Ashley Murguia, Kevin Nguyen, Jason Nguyen, Sydnie Nguyen, Tony Nguyen, Tuan Nguyen, Aaron Pham, Diana Pham, Tam Pham, Peter Phung, Athena Schauner, Logan Spachek, Blaise Stewart, Katherine Sullivan, Jude Tran, Tiffany Tran, Minh Vu, Alana Aguilar, Vanessa Goheen, Evelyn Hay, Alyssa Hengel, Ricardo Hernandez-Herrera, Lexi Hoang, Areli Jimenez, Nicholas Kucera, Paul Lies, Emily Leithoff, Riley Logan, Kamilah Martinez-Vargas, Link Moore, Alex Nguyen, Kevin Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Teresa Nguyen, Tom Nguyen, Nathan Pham, Sydney Pham, Chris Ramos, Jordan Rangel, Britton Zavala, Xitlalli Aguilar-Maldonado, Brandon Chandler, Julien Dickerson, Vy Do, Arianna Guzman, Luis Hernandez-Herrera, Colton Hill, April Huynh, Lucas Jones, Isabel Landwehr, Emily Le, Annie Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Jesus Rocha, Joshua Sanchez, Madalyn Spaulding, Kevine Tchoukedjoup, Alondra Tejeda, Dylann Thompson, James Tran and Kara Whitaker.
 
   Lastly, let us give thanks to God and show our appreciation to our confirmation teachers and helpers.  They are Carissa Cash, Jean Gengler, Susan Goheen, Marilyn Grommesh, Mary Hengel, Lien Kucera, Jenny Logan, Jami Moore, Sandy Nettleton, Linda Rangel, Anne Schock and Kim Spachek.  Thank you everyone for your ministry to our church and to our children. 
 
God bless, Fr. Hien

My Dear Parishioners,
 
    Are you ready for November?  Many things will happen in November.  First, please remember to attend the Feast of All Saints on Friday, November 1st.  Obligated Holy Masses are Thursday at 6:30pm and Friday at 12noon and 6:30pm.  We will need all the help for these Masses as we would for Sunday Masses such as greeters, ushers, servers, lectors, Eucharistic ministers, musicians...  Second, on Saturday, November 2nd, at our 4pm Mass, we will pray especially for all the faithful departed—all souls, including those among our families and friends who have passed to eternal life.  After Mass, everyone is invited to the Fischer Center for our parish feast day supper.  Food will be provided; more details are in the bulletin.  Third, please turn your clock back one hour on Saturday night, November 2nd, so that you will not be in church by yourself the next day for Mass.
 
    Fourth, new parishioner registration forms are in the pews.  If you have not registered with All Saints, please know that we would love to have you and your family with us.  Please complete the registration form and place it in the collection basket during Mass or send/drop it to the church office as soon as you can.  Everyone in All Saints Church’s boundary are to register at All Saints.  In the gathering area, we post all the names of those who are currently registered with All Saints.  If your name is not on it, then you are not yet registered.  Please fill out a form so that we can add you into our system.  We need your email too so that we can communicate with you and send you important information about our church and school.  Thank you for your commitment to All Saints.  Please know that as a member of All Saints parish, you’ll help us continue our good deeds to God, our worshiping to God and our providing of Catholic education to God’s little children.  All Saints has formed and educated thousands and thousands of people for generations and we will continue doing so with your love and support.  Thank you for registering with us!
 
   Fifth, the highlight of November is to celebrate Thanksgiving with our loved ones.  God bless our families.  Finally, we will hold our annual stewardship renewal in November & December.  Let us pray that everyone will follow Jesus with their hearts, minds and souls.  Everyone has been empowered by the Holy Spirit to be fully alive as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ to the world. 
 
   Love you all, Fr. Hien
 

My Dear Parishioners,
 
   I hope and pray that you are doing well and that you truly love your Catholic Faith.  I also hope that you love our All Saints church and chapel.  They are truly beautiful houses of God, places of peace, love and prayers to God and to the angels and saints.  We are blessed with so many statues in our church so that people can be with Jesus, Mother Mary, and the many angels and saints.  I have noticed that many people love to light a candle for their intentions.  Do you know that we burn about 100 cases of candles in a year?  That’s a great sign of our faith and trust in God, and our help from Mary and the saints.  PS. Please do not light candles during Mass so that you will not disrupt anyone in church.  Mass is not over until Father and the servers have left the altar.  Our candles are blessed and will burn up to 7 days.  Personally, I have heard so many happy comments from many people.  They love what we have and the devotions at All Saints, including the statues.  They love that we pray the Holy Rosary before every Mass.  They love that our All Saints children attend daily Mass and give their devotion to Mother Mary.  Let us give thanks to God for all the good He has done for us through the good-hearted people in our church family.  Now that we have a Holy Family statue in our church, you may want to use this special Holy Family prayer to pray for your family until everyone in your family is in heaven. 
 
   Holy Family Prayer:  Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, bless our family.  Graciously inspire in us the unity, peace, and mutual love that you found in your own family in the little town of Nazareth.  Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus and Our Mother, nourish our family with your faith and your love.  Keep us close to your Son, Jesus, in all our sorrows and joys.  Saint Joseph, Foster-father to Jesus, guardian and spouse of Mary, keep our family safe from harm.  Help us in all times of discouragement or anxiety.  Holy Family of Nazareth, make our family one with you.  Help us to be instruments of peace.  Grant that love, strengthened by grace, may prove mightier than all the weaknesses and trials through which our families sometimes pass.  May we always have God at the center of our hearts and homes until we are all one family, happy and at peace in our true home with you. Amen.
 
   Finally, as you know, we have been counting Mass attendance during this month of October.  It is the bishop’s desire to have this done in every church.  Thank you to those who have been helping with this process.  We are blessed with many hands and good-hearted people in our church family.  God, we love and He alone we serve. 
 
   God, we love you, Fr. Hien

My Dear Parishioners,

   It’s our Catholic tradition to have statues in church to remind us of the holy angels and saints that are with God and with us.  Angels and saints have loved God since the day God created them.  God even entrusts His holy angels to every person on earth, to protect us from the devils and to guide us to heaven.  Saints were born and lived like us, as sinners, but because they loved God so much, others so much and their Catholic faith so much, now they are with God for eternity in complete joy, happiness and peace.  Please know that every time you enter a Catholic Church, you enter God’s holy house with His Holy Angels and Saints.  They are in church to adore Jesus in the tabernacle.  They also join us in singing and praising at the Holy Mass.  So please, do not talk in church, especially after Mass.  All conversation should be in the gathering area.
   About a year ago, someone came to me with the interest of donating a statue for our church.  The person reminded me again last July, so I started working on this project and ordered the statues.  I chose the Holy Family because I want everyone to imitate the Holy Family, that is to love God and to love their own families.  I firmly believe that God gave us each other so that we may love each other and live eternally with God in heaven together.  Let no family be separated from each other in this life or in the next.  Why the statues of Saints Peter and Paul?  Wow, they were Jesus’ beloved disciples.  Peter was given the divine faith in Jesus and built His Catholic Church upon Peter’s faith that was given to him by God the Father.  Jesus also assigned Peter’s successor, the pope, to lead us to eternal life with the infallible teachings.  Saint Paul at first was a stranger and persecutor of Jesus’ community; however, Jesus revealed Himself to Paul and he became the greatest evangelizer of the Gospel to the world.  
   These holy statues were blessed during Holy Mass with our All Saints students on Wednesday, October 9th.  After every Mass, our children pray to the saint of the day, All Saints and to Mary with the Memorare prayer.  Now they can look at Jesus, Mary and Joseph when they pray for their families.  Thank you to the generous donor of these statues and the donor of the security lock for the southwest door of our church.  The statues beautify our church and help us to be like the angels and saints; the security lock makes it convenient for those coming to church and keeps us safer during Holy Mass.  Thank you!
   Finally, there will be no daily Mass from October 14-25, as I will be attending two priests’ conferences.  Fr. Doug Campbell will hear confessions and celebrate our Saturday 4pm Mass on October 19th.  Please pray for my safe travels.  

Love you all, Fr. Hien

​My Dear Parishioners,
 
   Holy Mary pray for us sinners now and at the hour our death, Amen.  Every Catholic knows how to pray the holy Rosary.  Mary promised that anyone who would ask for her help with their good intentions, she would help them by praying for them before God.  She will never turn away from anyone who asks her for her intercession.  This Monday, October 7th is the feast of Our Lady of the holy Rosary, please give your devotion to our Mother, especially throughout this month of October that’s dedicated to the holy Rosary.  When you pray, please remember all priests, living and deceased, in your prayer.  All priests need your love and prayer.  All priests are in need of God’s guidance and blessings every day to be true priests for His people, to lead them to Jesus for His merciful love, blessings and eternal life.  Every priest needs to focus on his salvation and the salvation of others; therefore, he must believe in what he preaches and practice what he teaches.
 
   Do you know that all priests are human like everyone else?  Sometimes we are lazy, drunken, greedy, problematic to others, etc.…  Sometimes we even celebrate the Holy Sacraments with many distractions in our minds, and are even heartless sometimes.  The devil tempts every priest as much or even more than he would tempt others.  Please know that priests are weak people in many ways, we do fail in our words and deeds.  Priests have addictions too.  For the love of Jesus, I ask everyone to pray for all priests—living and deceased, especially through the intercession of Mother Mary.  Priests need God’s blessings and everyone’s love and forgiveness too.  On the behalf of all my brother priests, local and worldwide, living and deceased, please forgive us for the times we have failed you or someone you may know, including the sins of hate and of molestation, etc.… All priests are in need of God’s mercy and everyone’s forgiveness so that they can be loved again.  Please forgive us so that we may be your priests and friends again.  Have you made new friends this week yet?  Let us open our hearts and hands to be friends with everyone, the old and the young, the healthy and the sick, the rich or the poor, and of course we can be friends with sinners too so that we may love them and forgive them.  That was what Jesus did and He wants us to imitate Him.  It is only in this way that God would forgive each one of us our sins through human weakness. 
 
Jesus, Mary & Joseph, love us and pray for us sinners, Fr. Hien