Turkey Bingo

The Home School Association (HSA) prepared our Social Hall for crowd of fun loving bingo players last night.

It was a fun, family event with half of the proceeds going towards providing over 350 Thanksgiving meals in Sarpy County.

Finishing Some Striping

Sixth Street was closed for a few hours yesterday to do some work striping the street.

One of the things they did was paint a yellow triangular are to help encourage west bound traffic to move to the right. When they had worked on the street a few weeks back, we got an unscheduled rain-shower. So they were able to take care of some striping they had intended to do earlier.

As a gesture of good will, the folks at Miktom were kind enough to restripe some areas of our existing parking lot as well as paint a cross walk for our new crossing spot.

With all of the new portions of the parking lot, it's nice for some of our current parking lot to get some attention.

Thank you Miktom!

Happy Birthday Fr. Dave!

Fr Dave is out of the country on his "mission to the boat people," but it's his birthday today. So keep him in your prayers in a special way today.

The Pastor's Challenge

From Fr. Dave:

Last week I introduced my "Pastor’s Challenge". I would be delighted if we could turn “Pave the Way” into “Paid the Way”. The sooner we pay off the loan, the more interest money we will save and the sooner we can move on to Phase III.

This "challenge" is twofold. First - I would like to encourage members of our parish to join me in making little sacrifices to save money and contribute each month by putting your savings in the “Pave the Way” envelopes provided in your monthly packet.

Fr. Damian suggested that we each contribute what we might spend each month for parking at sporting events or concerts at the CenturyLink Center. This is a great idea. In essence, if many of our 3,000+ families each made a contribution, we would go a long way toward paying off Phase II.

Secondly, I will personally match the largest donation to “Pave the Way” that is made (before December 31st) up to $10,000.00. I want to be a part of the success of this project and thank all of you in advance for your tremendously generous support.

Pax,
Fr Dave

Fr. Dave visits Singapore

Fr. Dave is on another of his missions to the boat people. He began in Singapore and was able to get together with Fr. Wee's parents while he was there.

Crazy Hair Day

As a reward for surpassing $30,000 in their HSA Fundraising, students at St. Columbkille Catholic School got to enjoy a Crazy Hair Day yesterday.

Otherwise it was just a typical day at school.

All you holy men and women, pra-ay for us

I drove across town alone in the car Wednesday morning and switched on Catholic radio.

I tuned into the middle of a brief biography of St. Charles Borromeo, the saint of the day. And when his story was finished I instinctively said: "St. Charles Borromeo, pray for us."

Then also instinctively, I sang the line: "St. Charles Borromeo, pra-ay for us."

In the spirit of the new month of November -- a month of saints and holy souls -- I switched off the radio and began singing my own personal litany of saints.

I started with some of the heavy-weights, renowned for their intercession before God, such as our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and the apostles. I also asked for prayers from the the saints I'm named after -- and those my relatives are named after -- the saints we adopted at birth, Baptism and Confirmation.

Then I turned to a few personal favorites, some of my go-to saints in prayer, such as St. Alphonsus Ligouri and St. Philip Neri. That list also would include any Carmelite saint (my older brothers and sisters in Christ because I'm a lay Carmelite). Among the Carmelite greats would be St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross ( Edith Stein), St. Elizabeth of the Trinity and St. Titus Brandsma.

Of course, St. Columbkille would be in my personal litany of saints, as well as patron saints of former parishes and schools. And I couldn't forget St. Cecilia, patron saint of the archdiocese.

Also, I owe some partiality to St. Anthony, who helps me almost daily as I'm looking for lost items, and St. Jude, patron saint of seemingly hopeless cases, like me.

I went on and on thinking of saints to pray to, until I sang and prayed my way home that morning. Once home, it was hard to stop. I enjoyed the challenge of thinking of as many saints as possible, and the little tune was stuck in my head. So I just kept praying until my thoughts drifted toward the busy work of the day.

The beautiful thing about many of our Catholic prayers and traditions is that they can be adapted to suit us personally. I enjoy remembering and turning toward our friends in Heaven. And in prayerful hope I await the day I can meet them there and join them in praise of our Lord.

"All you holy men and women, pra-ay for us!"

Inspired by the Year of Faith, Susan Szalewski began writing weekly columns for us. Although that year is over, we liked them so well that we asked her to keep writing. Thankfully, she said yes. So watch for these on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Planting 115 Trees

As part of Phase 2 of the Pave the Way project we're adding trees.

We are planting a total of 86 evergreen trees as well as 29 deciduous trees. While some folks seemed to think we were going to just flatten the property and pour blacktop on it, we really want to be good stewards and have something we can all be proud of.

All Saints

To celebrate All Saints, K-2 students at St. Columbkille Catholic School made pennants for their favorite saints.

Then they paraded through the school.

Halloween Prank?

Did someone steal our stairs as a Halloween Prank?

It did happen on Halloween, but it wasn't a prank. If you walked this set of stairs, you may have noticed that the angle of the steps were off on the top two and they weren't even. So the contractors pulled it out and will re-pour the steps. They want everything to be perfect.