28th Sunday of the Year

Dear Friends in Christ,

1. The bad weather last weekend caused our Mass attendance and collection to be a bit lower than usual. If you were among those unable to come last weekend, please do make up the missing offertory gift if possible. We depend upon your generosity from week to week to stay on budget throughout the year, and we are grateful for your commitment to St. Mary’s.

2. As you know, many people lost everything in the storm, most especially in the Midlands and Low Country. Bishop Guglielmone has asked us to take up a special collection for disaster relief in our diocese, and we will do that at St. Mary’s on 24 and 25 October, the last weekend of the month. Thank you for helping those in great distress.

3. Please note that the Wednesday afternoon Holy Hour with Confessions will not take place on the last Wednesday of October, November, and December. And the last week of this month is the annual retreat for priests in our diocese, and so most priests in our community will be away that week. For that reason, we will not have Mass at noon on 27, 28, or 29 October; we will, however, have Mass at 7 am each day that week.

4. Our new organist, Dr. David Rhyne, is also the conductor and artistic director of the South Carolina Bach Choir here in Greenville. On Sunday 25 October, the Bach Choir will perform a concert in the Daniel Memorial Chapel at Furman University. The concert begins at 4 pm, and it will be preceded by a lecture on the music of Bach at 3 pm. The cost is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $5 for students. Johann Sebastian Bach is rightly hailed as the Fifth Evangelist because of the power and beauty of his music and the depth of his own Christian faith, so come share in the glory of Bach’s genius, and for more information, go to www.scbach.org.

5. After several years of splendid service in Greenville, Father Jon Chalmers has accepted the call to be president of Holy Family Cristo Rey high school in Birmingham, Alabama – one of thirty high schools around the country in the Cristo Rey Network which provide excellent Catholic education to disadvantaged students. Father Chalmers will end his work at St Francis Hospital on 30 October and will begin his work in Birmingham the first week of November. He will, however, be with us on Sundays at 9 am through the end of December because Margaret, David, and Thomas are staying in Greenville until the end of this school semester. While it is difficult to bid farewell to good friends and peerless colleagues, we should rejoice for the Chalmers family to be returning home to Alabama and grateful for the time we have shared together. Look for more information as the move approaches.

Father Newman