ISAIAH 63:17

It’s the first Sunday of Advent! Happy new liturgical year!

We have a tendency to create God in our own image. Here a frustrated Isaiah blames God for the people’s sins. He thinks God is angry and has turned away from Israel. There are no good deeds that will redeem. But by the end of this passage, Isaiah lets go of his frustration and anger and confesses, “we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.”

In this season of Thankfulness, I got a text from Gary Edwards, who is in quarantine recovering from COVID-19. He is tremendously thankful for your prayers while he was in an ICU. He began to recover a couple of hours after receiving Extreme Unction.

On Jesus’ list of actions is visiting the imprisoned. A fairly new prison ministry called One Parish, One Prisoner has been developed recently. Our neighbor St. Joseph Parish has been active in this ministry for a couple of years. For more information, please look at the article in Northwest Catholic, “For Parishes and Prisoners, a Chance for Transfor- mation”.

We are nearing the end of our Stewardship Campaign. Please take a look at your budg- et as a spiritual exercise. Consider your commitments and your gratitude and make some decisions from your heart. I would ask you to put your generosity first in your budget and then squeeze the rest in. There are a lot of demands on your generosity: food banks are facing record demands, St. Vincent de Paul is struggling to keep many in southeast Seattle in their homes, and St. Therese needs your support.

As you know, the St. Therese budget is showing a deficit. Among all the demands on your generosity, please take care of your parish! Over the last dozen years or so the budget has gotten leaner and leaner. There really isn’t anything left to cut. Closing our deficit requires about a 10% increase in giving. I know that for many of you, that is not possible but for those who can, it will help make your parish sustainable. For those who can’t, please give what you can from your resources.

You probably received a pledge card recently. Please return it or go the website and click on the Stewardship Pledge button in the middle of the home page.

If you give on PushPay, please open the app on your phone, search on Saint Therese Church and update your recurring gift amount.

Collections July 1—November 25, 2020: $123,259
Where we need to be: $143,598
Last year at this time: $123,918