Fr. Hien's Weekly Letter 03/05/23

My Dear Parishioners,
Blessings from our Lord be with you during this Holy Lent, may this time lead you closer to Jesus and your loved ones.  Lent is about changing oneself to be more Christ-like, such as seeing the goodness in one another.  All Saints is blessed with many volunteers to complete the flooring of the foyer, the hallways, the cry room, the old adoration chapel, and the sacristy.  The floors look so clean and nice—I hear many compliments from parishioners and visitors.  Did you know that other Catholic churches are doing away with carpet?  It’s due to the allergies and the dirtiness that cannot be cleaned, especially when a person comes to church with muddy shoes, or a sick student throws up on the carpet.  Please know that weekly, we do have a few thousand people walking into our church to pray, to worship and to visit.  In the past month, we have also been working in the Fischer Center, cleaning out a lot of junk from the daycare decades ago, including the old carpet, mudding the walls, sanding and painting them.  Yes, we also installed new commercial grade vinyl flooring.  Currently, we are working outside, paving concrete in front of the church’s office (an area with a riser for the annual Christmas Nativity display and for the annual Marian gathering in October with Bishop) and garage to make the front of our church area more open and cleaner, of course, less mowing (we are looking for volunteers to help mow our lawn, please contact the church office if you can help).  The expenses for this concrete project and the new floorings in the Fischer center are paid for by the Vietnamese food sale.  Thank God for all that we have, especially each other, Fr. Hien