Fr. Tom JohnsPastor · St. John Vianney

Pastor's Page

Dear Parishioners, Believe it or not, Festival Week has arrived and, as you can imagine, there is a lot to be done in the next few days. If you have any free time this week, stop up here and see if you can lend a hand, especially on this Monday night when a lot of hands are needed to set up tables, chairs, garbage cans and more. Please also call Maureen Kraizel soon if you have not yet signed up to volunteer on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. There are multiple areas where help is still needed. The 4:00 Saturday vigil Mass will be the Polka Mass this year and the Don Wojtila Band once again will be playing at the Mass and at the Garden Stage after Mass. "Big in Japan" and "Post Road Country" will be playing in the Main Entertainment Tent later that evening from 7:00-11:00. They are two new bands to our festival and both have come highly recommended to us. Pieces of Eight will play on Friday night and Funkology and Ace Molar will play on Sunday. Soubirous has been invited to return on Friday evening from 6:00—9:00 at the Garden Stage. They were well received as a band last year and many enjoyed seeing a number of young priests singing in that rock band. Three-n-Easy, Dueling Pianos, Mad Town Jazz and Jungle Terry will entertain on Saturday or Sunday. The children will enjoy Jungle Terry on Sunday at 5:30. Molly Smith has collected or prepared some great baskets for the Basket Raffle in the Social Center all weekend. Winners will be drawn on Sunday evening at 7:00. I appreciate all the work Molly does with baskets for the festival as well as the Hooley each year. They contribute in a significant way to profitable fundraisers. I did a basket of groceries for baking worth over $100 and also will be adding a dozen of my homemade cookies. My sisters put together a bowl of money looking like a bowl of salad. Good luck winning either one of them or one of the many other great looking baskets! The sale of raffle tickets is going very well. Many parishioners have sold or bought their share of raffle tickets and many look forward to getting a call from me on Sunday night to let them know they won either $15,250 or $2,250 or $1,250. It is always a pleasure for me to share good news with someone. Marilyn Costich was our early bird winner last week and she was the recipient of a $100 Shell gas card. The final early bird winner was drawn on Friday of this weekend and will be announced in next weekend's bulletin. Thanks again to everyone who supported the raffle. As you know, the raffle is the largest contributor to a successful summer festival. This will be a great holiday weekend. We celebrated a 4th of July Mass on Saturday morning and will be offering ice cream to everyone after the 4:00 Saturday vigil Mass. Today, on Sunday, we have donuts and coffee in the John Paul II Room after each of the Masses. Parishioners continue to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by doing acts of mercy in our community and/or by spending an hour in prayer or adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The American Bishops challenged all the parishes in the United States to do at least 250 acts of mercy and to spend 250 hours in prayer or adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I know that our parishioners have contributed to many more than 250 hours of merciful deeds and many more than 250 hours of prayer. This has been a great way to celebrate our nation's anniversary. Let us continue to celebrate this anniversary at the festival and let us be a people who are so grateful for the blessings we share and often take for granted. The Parish Office will be closed on Monday, July 13, to allow folks to help with festival clean up in the office or to minimize traffic in and out of the parking lot while many volunteers are working with the clean up process. When the festival closes on Sunday night, help will be needed with some clean up which needs to be done before morning. The tables, chairs, and tents need to be ready to go first thing in the morning. Please stick around to help if you are available to do so. I will celebrate a Mass on Saturday night in the church once the festival is closed for the night. Please pray for good weather this week and for the safety and well-being of all our parishioners and visitors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This will be my last summer festival at the parish. I know it will be a great one and I look forward to seeing so many great people.

Fr. Johns