A Letter From Our Cathedral Rector :In Face of Ongoing Pandemic, We Continue to Embrace Stewardship

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

This month we realize we have been at it for a year. The pandemic is still with us. We need to still be implementing our safety protocol steps. My guess is that the arrival of spring will tempt many of us to be more social, but I encourage you to make wise and conservative decisions in order to keep others and yourself safe. It continues to look like better days are ahead, but we need to be patient.

But that does not mean that we do not plan for the post-pandemic days. In this article, I want to suggest several areas of our ministry where it will be good to have a plan. I realize that as I retire this summer, I will not be part of implementing some of these ideas, but they still seem important for all of us to consider and some of them will be relevant between now and June 30

There will be some financial needs throughout our community. Businesses have closed; workers have lost jobs; wages have been cut and profits have been less than usual. Our ministries of charity will need to be in high gear.

We have been fortunate that our school has been able to operate. But the children of our community, including many parish families, have not been able to meet as usual in public schools. We need to be supportive of strategies that will be helpful to those students who have fallen behind in their studies.

Virtual meetings, classes, and Masses have helped us to keep our ministries moving forward. We anticipate that Zooms and livestreaming will be aspects of ministry as the parish moves into the future.

Our staff has been less present at our office; the office itself has not been as open as usual. When we re-open on a normal level, we will need a team of volunteer receptionists to provide a welcome and initial assistance to those who come to our office.

When we re-open, it will be exciting to resume our social life, our school’s athletic programs, our ministry to the sick and shut-ins, our various liturgical ministries, and the fullness of our ministries which bring people together, especially our youth. It will be exciting to experience the cathedral filled with people again. Many people have risen to the occasion as volunteers during this time of the pandemic. Many of them have given in a very generous way of their energy. We need to be ready to reinforce them with other volunteers and with the return of many volunteers who have been staying home and staying safe.

During the pandemic, our campaign to address the infrastructural issues of our Church and school has continued, as has our daily cleaning and maintenance, and our constant sanitization. Our parish’s facility staff of Joe Sandfort, James West, and Ronnie Hood has been magnificent, as has their team of volunteers. However, we anticipate that we will be needing a few more volunteers who are experienced in various aspects of construction and maintenance.

Our call to stewardship includes volunteering, financial giving, and prayer. We have been praying our way through the pandemic. I encourage you to keep up that spiritual commitment as we still have a way to go. In one sense, the pandemic has been like a long retreat for many of us. Talented and driven as we might be, we do not control our lives and our world as much as we would like. We need God and the grace of God. The brokenness of our world has been revealed in the political and racial strife. We have experienced so many highs and lows and have had to process them in a fairly isolated manner. Prayer has been a strength for so many of us in this chaos. As we are coming through it all, it will be so good for us to stay with our deepened commitments to prayer.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Paul Prabell, Rector

Fr. Paul Prabell, Rector