July 21, 2024

Dear Parishioners,

A couple weeks ago I had the fortunate opportunity to fly out for two days on a mission trip to central Washington state to visit the Diocese of Yakima. I went with the Catholic Extension Society, the organization we partner with each year for our Lenten Almsgiving Project. Catholic Extension is a philanthropic organization headquartered here in Chicago that gives funds to “mission dioceses” across the United States. These are generally poor, rural areas who lack money, priests, and other resources. Saint Paul of the Cross, through our Lenten efforts in particular, has built churches and schools around the country for these poor communities, and helped in many other ways with various other efforts. It’s really quite remarkable what we’ve done.

            Anyways, we saw the church in Washington State helping, at this particular time of year, the migrant farm workers picking, among other things, cherries. These workers move up the Fresno Valley in California throughout the year picking the particular crops that are harvesting, and by June and July are in Washington for the cherry harvest. Over 48 million pounds of cherries are picked a day. We spent time with these workers in the fields and saw where they lived in worker camps. The worker will usually wake up at 2 or 3am to go to work, as the cherry needs to be picked before it’s too hot, otherwise the sugar will recede back into the tree and the fruit won’t be as sweet. It was 110 degrees while we were there.

            The priests and bishop in Yakima will either be out there to support the workers in the fields or actually doing the work themselves. Mass will be celebrated and dinner provided after work at the camp. The church will also provide for daycare, schooling, and other fun, educational activities for the children back at the worker camps while their parents are away in the fields. It was awesome to see the church at work in this unique way. I’ll never look at a cherry the same way.

            The opening line in our first reading this weekend is: “woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture.” Jeremiah would not be saying that to these Washington State shepherds. May he not say it of us either. May all of us have the heart of a good shepherd.

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Last Saturday’s assassination attempt on President Trump was a traumatic event for the nation. Let us pray for President Trump, as well as for our country and our current president, Joe Biden. I echo the words of Cardinal Cupich from his statement, “May God the Father enfold all his children in his loving embrace, encouraging us to listen to our better angels, to break the cycle of violence, and choose peace.”

            I will be away on my annual vacation with my priest friends starting this upcoming Tuesday. I’ve mentioned this in previous years, but this is a group of six of us who studied in seminary together and are from different dioceses around the country. I will be praying for you all while I am away.

            Many of you have already made contributions to the Archdiocesan Capital Campaign, so we’re off to a great start to reaching our goal of $2.7 million. We still have a ways to go, so please continue to pray for the effort and consider your gift to the campaign. I’m trying to meet with folks individually about their campaign contribution. Feel free to reach out to me if you’re ready to make a gift. As a reminder, the funds that go to the Archdiocese will support priest health care and retirement, as well as the scholarships for Catholic education, among other items. The funds that we will keep at the parish will go to build outdoor Stations of the Cross around our campus and a new large meeting space adjacent to the gym. We are hoping to have drawings and pictures of our projects in the near future. Thank you again for your support.

            On Wednesday, August 14th in the evening we will be hosting here at St. Paul of the Cross in the gym a capital campaign event for us and other parishes in our pilot wave of the campaign. Cardinal Cupich will be present to give a more detailed explanation of the campaign, and drinks and heavy hors d'oeuvres will be served. We hope you can join us for that event.

            Please save the date for our parish picnic on Sunday, September 8th at 1pm in the parking lot.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. James.