I have a lot of people ask me whether I will be taking vacation over the summer, and my reply is always, essentially, not in a million years! (Yes, I was just on retreat and at Priest Days, but these are both required events – not vacation.) The reason is because everyone else is on vacation during the summer, and this is an excellent time to stay in the office and get some long-simmering projects completed. Or, at least, that is the vain hope that I pray will be at least partially realized. Plus, what am I going to do over the summer? Go outside? Not in a million years!
Besides just trying to answer weeks-old e-mails, and act on all the random notes on my desk, what are my hopes for the summer?
- With our youth minister, do some intensive prayer/study with specific high school youth, to empower them to invite their peers into faith conversations.
- Roll out the Altar Society and Parish Life and Socials as the two low-barrier parish volunteer opportunities.
- Review all of the books people have given me for our parish library, keeping the ones that work, getting rid of the ones that do not.
- Continue the work on establishing a Catholic high school in Burlington, with the summer goal being to make the Steering Committee self-sufficient.
- Lay all the groundwork for the roll out of the Partners in the Gospel families in September.
- Create a new parish website.
- Transcribe and upload more of my homilies (I publish the recording each week, but it has been a long time since I tried to upload a text).
- [Placeholder for something I am sure I have forgotten.]
Yea, okay, looking at that list, it is clear that even 8 relative “light” weeks are not going to be enough. Welp, fingers-crossed that even some of that is going to happen.
Fr. Moore 