December 2, 2018

​My Dear Parishioners,
   Welcome to the new liturgical season of Advent.  During Advent, the Gloria will not be used until Christmas.  Advent candles will be lit.  Everyone, please consider joining our Christmas choir to sing praise to God for our Christmas Masses.  God would love to hear from your voice and heart.  Please contact Sandy for more information.  Also, to prepare your heart and soul to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, please consider going to confession sometime between now and Christmas day.  I normally hear confessions about 20 minutes before every weekend Mass in the west confessional.  Our parish penance service with guest priests will be Sunday, December 16th from 4pm to 5pm.  Come & go as you wish.  Please know that no priest will be available to hear confessions on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. 
   RCIA: This weekend at our 4pm Saturday Mass, we will have a ceremony to welcome those who are in the RCIA to become Catholics at the Easter Vigil.  Please keep our candidates in your prayer. 
   Building Fund: Our goal is $170,000.  Thankfully we are blessed with $72,734 so far from about 97 parishioners and some non-parishioners who have donated generously to our Building Fundraising.  We will continue to thank God for them and their generous gifts.  Soon, we will recognize them in the bulletin.  If you wish to remain anonymous, please let Barb, our bookkeeper, know.  For confidentiality, we will never reveal the donation dollar amount of individuals, only the total sum.
   Did You Know? Beside the many bills to maintain our church and school, pay our employees and their healthcare insurance, and pay so many utility bills, we also must pay our high school bills and other bills to the diocese.  Here are some figures we were assessed by the diocese to pay by May 2019.  Direct payment to Kapaun Mount Carmel & Bishop Carrol high schools of $236,900.  This is for the education of our All Saints high school students.  The diocese also adds an additional $93,600 as subsidy to the high schools.  Our total annual bill toward the high schools is $330,500.  As of today, we were able to pay only $34,000.  As of December 1, 2018, we are behind in our payments to KMC & Bishop Carrol high schools and to the diocese of $124,888.88.  Not only that, we must pay 10% tithe to the diocese from our weekly collections.  As of December 1, 2018, we are $8,316 behind in stewardship payments to the diocese.  Therefore, with Christmas coming, if you can, would you consider gifting/helping our parish with some of these bills or toward the building fund to pay for the recently finished and the current projects.  Thank you! 
   Holy Day of Obligation: Saturday, December 8th is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This is a Holy Day of Obligation.  Holy Masses are Friday at 6:30pm, and Saturday at 8am and 9:30am.  Our Saturday evening Mass stays the same at 4pm for the 2nd Sunday of Advent (this Mass does not fulfill the obligation of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary).  Please be super nice to me this Saturday & Sunday for I’ll have 6 Masses in two days - just kidding!
  This weekend, please support our parish with our food sales after every Mass this weekend.  Please buy some to-go boxes of food for your family and friends or to eat authentic Vietnamese soups such as PHO in our parish hall.  There will be many varieties of Vietnamese food for everyone.  My duty is to grill about 100 lbs of meat for the sale.  Our goal is $4,000 toward our building fund.  With prayer & love, Fr. Hien