Hope you are enjoying our long-awaited fall; it finally arrived.. And, Christmas is only eight weeks away! We have several parish initiatives that will allow you to give to those in need as you celebrate God’s great gift of his Son, Jesus. For those of you not familiar with them or who would benefit from a little refresher, allow me toexplain each of these excellent programs: Adopt-a-Family, Christmas Food Basket and Mercy Hospice Giving Tree.
Adopt-a-Family
For the past 26 years, a small group of parishioners have coordinated this program that makes Christmas happier for dozens of needy families at our sister parish, St. Martin de Porres, as well as in our own neighborhood with gifts from generous parishioners who recognize that the spirit of Christmas includes giving to others as our God has given us his Son. Next weekend, you will have the opportunity to sign up to adopt a family after all of the Sunday Masses. You will be able to select from a list of families and given their names, as well as the ages and sizes of the children so you can personalize your gifts. After purchasing the gifts, you are asked to wrap them or put them in gift bags with their names on each gift. Then, on Saturday, 8 December, we ask you to deliver them to school between 10:00am and 2:00pm; members of our parish Youth Group will be at hand to take your gifts from your cars to the cafeteria.
If you will be attending Mass elsewhere next weekend and want to sign up for a family, please contact Pat Carney at atmwayne@aol.com; he will be very happy to help you select a family.
Christmas Food Basket
In addition to the Adopt-a-Family program, we offer everyone an opportunity to share the joy of Christmas with the needy, both at St. Martin de Porres and our own parish, through the Christmas Food Basket Program. Starting this week, you will find a shopping list of the items you may include in this food basket which will provide all the staples for a Christmas meal for an entire family. Through the ongoing generosity of a friend of our parish, boxes will be provided inside the main entrance of the parish center toward the end of November that you can use to pack your groceries. These boxes will also be collected at our school on Saturday, 8 December, between 10:00am and 2:00pm.
Mercy Hospice Giving Tree
You may already know that we provide casseroles to the Philadelphia Mercy Hospice, which cares for women and their children without permanent housing. Every Christmas, the children in our school make tags suggesting gifts for these women and children that are placed on the two Mercy Hospice Giving Trees that you will find at the St. Joseph Shrine and in the baptistery starting next week. You are asked to put them in gift bags with the red tag attached and placed in the St. Therese Shrine by Sunday, 9 December. If you have any questions, please contact Kay and Jerry Lafferty, the Mercy Hospice Coordinators, at 610-687-4707.
So many of you have made it clear throughout the years that you are aware of the true spirit of Christmas and are eager to share God’s love as we celebrate this clearest sign of his love – his coming in our midst to save us! God came to show his loving concern for all people and to bring them into his loving family, and your generosity has helped many people – both here in our own parish and throughout the Archdiocese – to experience God’s love! In the name of their fellow parishioners, I want to thank Dick and Anita Banister, Pat and Tracy Carney, Howard and Missy Deck, Jeff and Kathy Moore, John and Gwen McConnell, Bob and Jayne Risk and Shannon Reilly for coordinating the St. Martin de Porres projects, and Jerry and Kay Lafferty for coordinating the Mercy Hospice program once again this year!