I’m sure many of you have noticed that we’ve had a new piano and organ accompanist at the 8:00 and 9:30am Masses over the summer. Youngjin Joo, who has played the piano since she was eight years old and holds a Master’s Degree in Organ Performance, has graced us with her excellent musical accompaniment on both the organ and piano. After an extensive search over the summer and auditions with several candidates, we have engaged Youngjin as our new Sunday Accompanist and Adult Choir Director. I want to take this opportunity to thank our Search Committee (Laura Kerr, Ed Kubala, Kathleen McNally, Steven Morris, Valentin Radu and Stephanie Twohig, led by Ted Latham, who continues as our parish music director) who carefully interviewed the candidates. In the end, we unanimously and enthusiastically chose Youngjin! I’m sure you will all welcome her warmly as we look forward to benefitting from her years of experience on both the piano and organ as well as her desire to engage us all in worshiping God through song. Welcome, Youngjin!
I also want to take this opportunity to thank Laura Kerr, one of our parishioners, a professional piano teacher who has accompanied our students at both the Christmas Tableau and Living Stations of the Cross for the past several years. She has recently taken up playing the organ and provided accompaniment over the summer on both the piano and organ at the 11:30am Mass since Youngjin was unable to do so due to her other position. I’m sure Laura will continue to help us on the piano and organ but I want to thank her for her generous help over the summer.
And, I want to thank Valentin Radu, another parishioner and professional pianist and organist (I’m sure you recognize him as the founder and director of VoxAmadeus), who continues to accompany us at the 5:00pm Vigil Mass. Until we dismantled our pipe organ in the summer, Valentin played from the choir loft. Since our temporary organ was located in Msgr. Carroll’s former confessional, however, he has played from there as well as on the piano and we’ve all been blessed by his accompaniment and masterful interludes and postludes on the piano and organ. Again, I want to take this opportunity to thank Valentin for so generously offering his great talent on both the organ and piano as he leads us in prayerful song.
Finally, I want to thank Ted Latham for agreeing to remain as our parish Liturgical Music Director. He continues to ensure that we have the best musical accompaniment at our liturgies and we all benefit from his many gifts. We are blessed to have so many talented musicians in our parish, helping us in worship. As St. Augustine said so well, “he who sings, prays twice.” We’re doubly blessed by all of this talent encouraging us in our prayer!
Adopt-a-Family, Christmas Food Basket, Mercy Hospice Giving Tree
I hope you are enjoying our long-awaited fall; it finally arrived. And, Christmas is only a little more than six 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 to explain each of these excellent programs: Adopt-a-Family, Christmas Food Basket and Mercy Hospice Giving Tree.
Adopt-a-Family
For the past 27 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, 7 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 Kathy Moore at jkmoore203@aol.com; she 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, 7 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 bring your unwrapped gifts – with the red tags attached – and place them in the boxes located at the St. Therese Shrine in church by Sunday, 15 December. Please contact Jane Dwyer (610-306-9171), Jane Dooner (610-505-1436) or Susan Weiner (610-331-3847), the Mercy Hospice Coordinators, if you have any questions.
The women and children at Mercy Hospice have benefitted from your generosity for 37 years, ever since Kay Lafferty and her husband, Jerry, who passed away in January, started the casserole project in our parish. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Kay and Jerry for their decades of dedicated care for these women and children. And, I want to thank Anne Condello for making all of the red tags; it’s a lot of work to prepare those hundreds of tags and they are really helpful to ensure that we get useful gifts. I’m so glad that we’re continuing our relationship with Mercy Hospice and thank Jane Dwyer, Jane Dooner, Vicki Warner and Susan Weiner for enthusiastically stepping in to coordinate this important parish outreach not only at Christmas time but throughout the year.
I also 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, Shannon Reilly and Kristen Davey for coordinating the St. Martin de Porres projects once again this year! 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!