While I seem to be in the minority, I’ve been delighted by the turn to cooler weather these last few days – suddenly several layers of vestments doesn’t seem quite so burdensome! 😉

But the change in season isn’t the only reason for cheer; the return of our students to Queen of Schools is its own joy. Spending time with our students & parents at drop-off in the morning, visiting classrooms on Thursdays, and having school Mass on Friday are some of the highlights of my week. One of the students happened to have gone to the summer vespers & board games and, having enjoyed Mario Kart on the Switch, gave me a little Mario figurine in a kart!

But it’s not all school work and video games! We’ve also got some neat things going on at the office. I am super proud of our staff, who have embraced – despite some (understandable) skepticism – our new digital calendars. We have a whopping fifteen calendars managing our four parishes (and one mission), covering faith formation, liturgy, and general parish life. We also have a calendar for parish family-wide events, one for staff stuff, and one to keep track of our four rectories. As you can imagine, we’re not done transferring everything but our liturgy calendar is stable enough that we’re all using it – especially us priests!

After some brave beta testing from some of our parishioners – some of whom highlighted a couple of major issues (thank you!) – I’d like to more publicly share a preview of what will eventually be on our parish family website. Eagle-eyed visitors will have seen a new menu item on my blog (Parish ministry) and one of the drop-down items is our liturgy calendar! Thanks to the magic of iCal links, you can even subscribe to the calendars on your own devices or accounts, which will add a each calendar you choose to your device/account – and it’ll update whenever we make changes or add new events! I encourage those who are interested to read the guide beneath the calendar for more information.

As I shared in my reflection on the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, last week had a particularly sad moment when I arrived too late to give the sacraments to a parishioner who had died the night before. In your kindness, please pray for Fran and for those who love her. I would also like to ask any parishioner of mine to do two things for me. The first is this: please pull out your cell phone (yes, right now). The second is to add this phone number to your contacts – perhaps under “Parish emergency line” (360) 809-6907. As you’ve likely heard me say at Masses lately, this is only for emergencies involving death or dying – but it is my hope that every parishioner has easy and ready access to this number should they or someone they know have need for a priest to come bring the Last Rites. With your assistance, we can help ensure that every Catholic receives the sacraments at the hour of their death.

Finally (finally!), I’d like to introduce a new feature to my pastor’s post: the inclusion of my bulletin insert. Our current bulletin provider does not publish the inserts that are included in the bulletin, which means that if parishioners use that link to read the bulletin they’re missing my pastor’s insert. And to that I say, not on my watch! This last weekend I wasn’t able to write an insert in time for the bulletin, but I’m including the backlog of my inserts (below) since I came to the Olympic Peninsula. Going forward, the prior Sunday’s insert will be included in my weekly pastor’s posts here on my blog.

I hope you all have a wonderful week – God bless you all.

Peace,
Father Maurer

P.S. Our next parish townhall meeting will be next week Friday (September 27, 2024) at 6:30 pm. We’ll be gathering at the parish hall of Queen of Angels in Port Angeles – I hope you’ll come join us for the latest update on the parish family and an open floor for Q&A!

P.P.S. Thank you to G.C. for the colors and design language of our parish family website, from which I have shamelessly stolen the colors to distinguish each of our calendars.

September 15 – Today’s memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (formerly ‘The Seven Sorrows of Mary’) highlights the union of Mary with Jesus’ suffering. Traditionally, Mary’s seven sorrows are 1) the prophecy of Simeon, 2) the flight into Egypt, 3) the loss of Jesus in the temple, 4) meeting Jesus on the Via Dolorosa, 5) Jesus’ crucifixion, 6) Jesus’ descent from the cross, and 7) the burial of Jesus. Read Pope Francis’ 2021 homily on Mary’s suffering.

September 16 – Today is the memorial of two saints – Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian, pope and bishop (respectively). Though holding different roles in the Church, they both faced great opposition due to their assertion that God’s mercy even allowed for the forgiveness of Christians who committed apostacy. Cornelius ended up dying in exile, Cyprian a martyr – but they both remained faithful to the Lord and His love. Read about them at Loyola Press.

September 17 – Though we do not have any churches in the Archdiocese of Seattle under his patronage, we do have a Jesuit high school named after today’s saint, Robert Bellarmine. Of the many aspects of his life, I was interested to discover that he assisted Galileo in navigating how to present his findings. He also wrote a relatively brief book titled The Art of Dying Well, which seems like something we should all check out! Learn more about him from one of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2011 general audiences.

September 20 – Today is the memorial of Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon, Saint Paul Chang Hasang, and their companions. Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon was the first native priest of Korea, but even before his ordination he was risking his life to help bring the gospel to his countrymen. In 1984, he was canonized along with 102 Korean martyrs by Pope John Paul II. Pope Francis offered a reflection on him at a general audience in 2023, available to read online.

September 21 – We close off this week with the feast of Saint Matthew, apostle and evangelist. Though Christians have heard it many times over, we perhaps take for granted the extraordinary response he had to Jesus’s call. Upon hearing the Lord invite Him with just two words – “follow Me” – Matthew walked away from his work as a tax collector and does just that. Would that we, too, hear and answer when God speaks! Father Grunow at Word On Fire offers a lovely reflection on him and his call from the Lord.

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Priests celebrating their anniversaries this week