A Note From Our Pastor: August 2, 2026

I want to inform you that one of our parish staff employees, Lucy Giaccio, will be leaving us at the end of August. She’ll begin a master’s program in education, and needs to put her energies toward that. It’s great for Lucy, but a loss for us. She’s great to work with and will be missed.

Lucy works about 10 hours weekly, as follows: 1) updating our social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram); 2) creating and sending the push notifications through our parish app; 3) creating and sending the (soon forthcoming) weekly parish e-newsletters (emailed to parishioners); and 4) attending our 1-hour communications meeting each week. If this important work interests you, please contact me.

Speaking of communications, I want to, more and more, ask you to use our parish website as a reference. It’s formatted for viewing on a cellphone, and I remind you, can be toggled to be presented in either English or Spanish. Get familiar with it, please.

Next, I want to again thank you, all of you who have contributed to the Annual Catholic Appeal. I’m writing this note on Sunday morning, so by the time you read this, I trust I will have even more to thank you for. As I write this, at St. Thomas, we have 86% of our assessment in ($7,400 left to go) and at St. Philomena, we have 81% of our assessment ($17,800 to go).

Currently, at St. Philomena, we have had two weekends of taking second collections, specifically for the Annual Catholic Appeal. Additionally, at St. Philomena our Hispanic community will be providing authentic and delicious Mexican food for us to purchase and eat following the Masses on Sunday, August 16th. The proceeds will likewise go to the ACA.

At St. Thomas, if by Friday, August 7th, we have not reached 95% of our assessment, we will likewise have the occasional 2nd collection, to get us to at least 95%. In working with my team, we agreed that when we reach 95% of the assessment, we’ll put it to rest, with the reasonable assumption that as pledges are fulfilled, it will close the gap. If not, we’ll revisit the remaining amount in January 2027.

As mentioned at the Masses at St. Philomena, because we have done such an amazing job of contributing toward our Works of Mercy initiatives (2nd collections on 4th weekend of the month), having collected way more than any of us anticipated, we will put the Works of Mercy monthly collections on hold until we reach the 95% mark for the Annual Catholic Appeal.

I’m confident that we will reach the 95% mark at both of our parishes by the second week of September. Again, thank you for your compassion and generosity.

Yours in Christ,

Father Todd O. Strange