Meet Our Lady of the Angels Bookkeeper Danielle Ritter

Our Lady of the Angels is pleased to welcome Danielle Ritter as our new bookkeeper. Danielle joined us at the beginning of the summer and thoroughly enjoyed her first months here, getting to know the “ins and outs” of the parish and her new position before going on maternity leave following the adoption of her first child. It has certainly been an exciting year of new beginnings for Danielle, and she has seen the hand of God in all of it!

Danielle has a deep personal connection to our community — she was baptized and grew up in Our Lady of the Angels Parish and attended Holy Family School. When she and her husband, Tyler, moved to Albany, they began going to Mass at a church there. About a year ago, Danielle found that she missed the strong sense of community in the churches of Sauk Centre, and the couple decided to return to Our Lady of the Angels.

The Ritters’ decision to return to Danielle’s home parish proved truly providential. Danielle had recently left a career in the culinary field to pursue a degree in accounting. She had finished her accounting degree in 2019 and began working for a tax firm downtown. When the pandemic hit, the firm no longer had any work for her.

“Tyler and I had been praying to St. Joseph, a 30-day novena for a job for me,” Danielle says. “We always included in our prayers that it would be whatever was pleasing to the Lord. Then I opened the bulletin one day and said, ‘I think God is talking to us.’ We had just come back to Our Lady of the Angels a few months before we saw this in the bulletin, so there is no doubt in my mind it was very providential. God had His hand in this.”

Each day in the office is a little different for a parish bookkeeper. Mondays are for counting the weekend offertory and making deposits, and the rest of the week is filled with bill paying, handling deposits for memorials and Mass intentions, reconciling accounts, and keeping the QuickBooks software up to date. Danielle also pitches in to help answer phones or assist parishioners who come to the office.

Danielle finds the bookkeeping work enjoyable, and she is especially thankful for the warm work atmosphere at Our Lady of the Angels.

“We always start our day in prayer — Cindy Sunderman, Whitney Rutten, and myself — which is awesome,” Danielle says. “I never thought I’d work somewhere where we could get together and pray to the Lord together. Cindy and Whitney are both kind and patient and such beautiful women in their faith, inside and out. Their devotion to the faith and the church is inspiring.”

Working alongside fellow Catholics for the mission of the parish has strengthened Danielle’s faith and brought her even closer to our parish family and the entire Area Catholic Community.

“I absolutely love the prayers throughout the day,” she says. “And I’m getting to know the parishes more and more, which is nice since we haven’t lived in Sauk Centre in many years. It’s bringing us more into things and ministries that will open up to us.

“I’m also getting to know the secretary from St. Alexius and the secretary and bookkeeper from the parishes in the south that recently joined us,” Danielle adds. “We have started getting together to meet every two weeks, and I think it’s been really important to bond the six parishes together. I hope to see all six of our parishes really come together. We are separate, but we are one, too, so I hope everyone will feel welcome.”

Shortly after Danielle started her position as the parish bookkeeper, another providential moment took place that would change her life forever. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Danielle’s sister had chanced upon a couple who was seeking adoptive parents for the baby they were expecting. She immediately told them about Danielle and Tyler, who have been married for 13 years and unable to have children of their own. Things moved quickly from there, and at the end of August, Danielle and Tyler welcomed their baby into the world!

Reflecting on the many ways God’s hand has worked in her life this year, Danielle is grateful to have returned to Our Lady of the Angels as both parishioner and bookkeeper.

“Having grown up in this parish and still seeing the same faces here today amazes me,” she says. “In this day and age, so many people are leaving the faith, so I just love to see people who stayed to raise their children in the faith. We have Catholic churches here that are very devoted to our Lady and our Lord, and it inspires me to deepen my faith even more.”