Welcome to St. James

Many thanks to the Funeral Committee and Grief Committee for their ongoing ministry in the parish. They ministered to 24 families at parish funerals last year. Last Monday, they planned the Mass of Remembrance for 70 parishioners and family members who died in the past year and served a meal for 85 people afterward.

There are a number of opportunities from service and charitable organizations offered in this bulletin and on the bulletin board in the Gathering Space. Tabitha Hospice, Crossroads Mission, the 35th Annual FREE Thanksgiving Dinner at the Knights of Columbus Hall. You can serve many other ways in the parish and community. There is a great need for people to serve in the ministries at Mass and to take communion to the homebound. We need more volunteers for our outreach to Habitat for Humanity and the Safe Center.

By engaging in these ministries and service, we live out the message St. Paul gave to the Thessalonians that we hear in the second reading today from his second letter chapter 2:16-17, 3:4-5. Brothers and sisters: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.

I am Joseph, your brother. Fr. Joseph Hannappel