Thanks for the support Mom!  Needless to say, festival week keeps many of us on the go with little to no time to spare.  Every second of every day of festival week is laser-focused on some aspect of … well, you guessed it … the festival.  Every year, I hope that the added activity, and thus the added steps tracked by my wonderful Samsung Galaxy Watch, will produce some weight loss.  If you hang around me long enough, you’d know that I often complain about needing to lose weight.  At the same time, if you hang around me long enough, you’d see that I do little to solve the problem.  I’d be happy to shed 20 pounds!  Unfortunately, when it comes to food, I’m the ultimate grazer; I could graze all day long.  And, my friends, festival weekend is the ultimate grazing weekend.  I was bound and determined this year not to graze too much because I didn’t want to gain any weight over the weekend.  Well, those awesome chicken burgers HAD to be accompanied with French fries.  I certainly wasn’t going to pass up the 50 ^th anniversary cake.  After all, it was our 50 ^th anniversary; so I had to celebrate.  Those Tater Tots kept calling my name each time I passed the food tent.  Of course, I had to sample the snack mix in the raffle ticket control room.  Then there were the coconut clusters and these amazing macaroons in Finance.  There was the Swedish Fish, the awesome salted South of the Border tortilla chips and the honey roasted peanuts in the Festival Co-Chair room.  Then there were the Cheetos, the M&M’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups I had stashed at my house for my family.  As I sat with family and friends in Bingo, there was no way I was going to pass up on the popcorn.  Then Jean Alway slipped me some of her amazing chocolate chip cookies.  To be honest, I thought I was doing a great job with my portion control until I stepped on the scale on Sunday morning and saw I gained 5 pounds!  Wait, the scale HAD to be wrong.  I actually had myself convinced that resetting my scale would give me a more accurate reading.  Well, that didn’t change the final number.  I wasn’t a happy camper. As I was bemoaning this fact with my mom, she eventually stopped my whiny little rant and said, “It doesn’t surprise me at all that you gained 5 pounds.  EVERY time I saw you, SOME type of food was in your hands.  Listen, a French fry here and a French fry there adds up.  One M&M leads to two, which eventually leads to 500 with you.”  THANKS MOM!  She was right, of course!  So, I did what most dieters do when they’ve completely blown their diets:  resolve to start again … but not until tomorrow.  So I went back to grazing like a cow sent out to pasture with nothing to do all day.  After all, it was festival weekend … and our 50 ^th on top of that.
 
THANK YOU Sr. Rose:  After eleven beautiful years of ministry to the sick and homebound of our parish, Sr. Rose has decided to retire.  Sr. Rose was so awesome in ministering to our sick and homebound.  Between her calls and visits, she touched the lives of so many people in our parish who might otherwise have been forgotten.  She coordinated all of the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion who brought communion to our homebound.  She would call and check up on people.  She would bring them our bulletins.  She would deliver our Christmas poinsettias and Easter gifts.  Even when the weather was terrible and we told her to stay home, she felt compelled to be present to her special group of parishioners.  She was so dedicated to them!  Her ministry to and her love for the homebound and sick were amazing.  She was the face of SJA to this special group of parishioners but more powerfully she was the very presence of Christ to them.  Her words of encouragement as well as her many prayers with and for the sick and homebound brought hope and peace to so many.  We will miss her daily hugs, the coffee breaks with her, the pizza parties (she LOVES pizza) and the many conversations with staff and parishioners.  In the next couple of months, Sr. Rose will move back to Nazareth, Michigan to be with the other sisters of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph.  Thank you, Sr. Rose for your love and your ministry.  Together with your own biological sister, Sr. Margaret, who also helped us with our ministry to the sick and homebound, we have been so blessed by your presence, your ministry and your love.  You will always have a place in our hearts, in our prayers and in our parish.  THANK YOU!  Godspeed!
 
CSA 2019: Opening Doors to WITNESS CHRIST:  This weekend marks the beginning of the annual Catholic Services Appeal for our parish.  This year’s CSA theme, Opening Doors to WITNESS CHRIST, is not coincidental given all that Archbishop Vigneron is accomplishing in the Archdiocese of Detroit as a result of Synod 16 and his pastoral letter, Unleash the Gospel.
 
Our CSA letters were dropped off at the post office on Friday.  I hope you take the time to consider prayerfully what you can give to this year’s CSA.  While one time gifts are rather popular, I encourage you to consider a ten month pledge to the CSA.  Speaking from my own experience, I’m able to give a much larger gift to the CSA by making a pledge over a ten-month period.
 
To make a gift to the CSA, please complete the form found at the bottom of your CSA letter.  Please return that form, along with your initial pledge payment (made out to the Archdiocese of Detroit - CSA) and either mail the envelope to the Parish Center or drop it in the Sunday collection basket.  You can also give your gift online by going to http://sja.aodcsa.org/.
 
I encourage you to read the CSA brochure that was mailed to you.  The CSA video that was played at mass this weekend can also be viewed online on the homepage of our parish website (www.sjascs.org).  It’s impressive to see the many and varied ways that the CSA helps fund so many important ministries and programs, all of which open doors so that we can give witness to the amazing life of Jesus Christ.  Yes, to live fully as a disciple is to make disciples!
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
gmb@sjascs.org