As you reflect upon the gifts with which God has blessed you, please prayerfully consider if the Holy Spirit is nudging you to serve the parish at Mass. A host of opportunities are waiting for you here at St. Joseph.
As we prepare to be fully re-opened as a parish, there are many ministries to replenish, and many volunteers to retrain. As you know, early in the epidemic, people over 65 were encouraged to stay home and participate in Mass online. Others stayed away for many good reasons as well. Many ministries were curtailed: we were not to have servers, choirs could not sing together, the gifts of bread and wine were kept near the altar, ushers were to keep some distance during collections and many other safety measures were in place. In the intervening 15 months, some people have now decided not to return to those ministries, many of which were related to the liturgy or preparing the church building in some way. The current small number of volunteers is wearing out as well. We need to rebuild them, and it also gives us an opportunity to change or improve them in some ways with different training. We would like to have enough that very few are needed more than once a month. (From the June 20, 2021 bulletin article by Fr. Stan Mader)
