Happy November! Happy All Saints Day! This month is an important one for us as a Church, a parish and a nation.
Today, as a Church, we celebrate All Saints Day. We honor the countless witnesses who have gone before us and are among the rolls of the saints of heaven. They are examples for us in our life of faith. We have a great, free online resource called FORMED where you can learn more about the saints. There are movies and stories about the lives of so many holy men and women, such as St. Maria Goretti. One of the relics that will be placed in the altar of the St. John Fisher Chapel is that of Maria Goretti. You can also learn more about the life of one of our newest saints, John Henry Newman. Use our parish code DHYCGW when you sign up and you will have free access to all of the content on FORMED.
As a parish, November 20 will mark the dedication of our South Campus, including the St. John Fisher Chapel, the Bishop F. Joseph Gossman Center and the St. Thomas More Catholic Preschool. This is a day two years in the making as we have worked to transform the former Aldersgate United Methodist Church into facilities that will allow us to further our mission to Pray, Serve and Spread the Gospel with Joy. Due to the limited seating capacity of the chapel, this is an invitation-only event. However, the dedication will be livestreamed through a link on our website. Everyone will have the opportunity to take tours of the South Campus after all Masses November 16-17. Weekday Masses on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday will begin to be celebrated in the chapel on December 2, the first Monday of Advent. We will also welcome Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels to their new home on the South Campus in late November. Our preschool will transition to their new buildings in August of next year.
As a nation, we will pause later this month on Thanksgiving Day to recognize that all we have is given as a gift and we must be good stewards of such gifts. As always, we will gather for Mass on Thanksgiving Day at 9:30AM. This is one of my favorite Masses of the year as it brings together a cross section of our parish community. It is not a holy day of obligation, yet the church is full. We recognize the need to come and celebrate the greatest act of thanksgiving we have in the Mass. Plan to come and begin your Thanksgiving through the nourishment that Christ provides in the gift of His body and His blood. Please consider bringing a bag of groceries for our parish donation to the Inter-Faith Council Food Pantry. This year our Thanksgiving Day Mass collection will be divided equally and donated to the IFC and CORA (Chatham Outreach Alliance) food pantries.
There is much for us to celebrate and be grateful for this month. We rejoice in the lives of the saints, we celebrate our new facilities and we give thanks for the blessings of this land and God’s good gifts to us.