Financial Update
Back in February, I spent a lot of time preparing a briefing document for our Finance Councils, outlining some struggles we are having with the regional financing model. I finally made time to publish that letter online. These numbers are now out-of-date, but it might still be worth a read if you are curious about the trials and travails of parish financing.
https://www.whatcomcatholic.org/updates/2025/5/20/decision-31-shared-finances-update
Pastoral Council Meeting
Our combined Pastoral Council met last Saturday in Ferndale, accompanied by the “Parish Family Advisory Council”*. We discussed the first round of Partners in the Gospel questions, as well as the potential Mass Times changes. Based on staff and Pastoral Council feedback, we are now working to revise the Mass times changes document for parishioner discernment. We are also getting ready for the first round of parishioner listening sessions on Partners in the Gospel.
*(The “Parish Family Advisory Council” or PFAC is a group of parishioners, some from the Pastoral Council some chosen for their expertise, who will guide us through the three-year process of producing our “One Parish Plan” for the Archbishop. This is the group that will help us plan and process the different listening sessions, and who will ensure that we have proper consultation and documentation along the way.)
Apologies to Bellingham
The Wednesday daily Mass in Bellingham (at Sacred Heart) did not have a priest this week, and I want to apologize to that community for the mix-up. Long story short, I was supposed to be there, but it did not make it into my Outlook calendar. We are revisiting our internal processes to try to keep that from happening again. Unfortunately, Liliana Marshall (our priest scheduler) has to maintain at least three distinct documents (master calendar, each priest’s Outlook calendar, list of fill-in/vacation dates), and with that many documents something is bound to fall through the cracks. We just haven’t figured out a better way yet.
Camp Hamilton
I am writing this note on Wednesday from Fr. Altenhofen’s rectory in Everett because I am headed out to Camp Hamilton to celebrate Mass for our school 6th graders on Thursday. I do not love how far away Hamilton is, but I love celebrating this Mass each year. The students are hyped up on camp, and they are SO THRILLED to see their priest outside of the normal context. Plus, I love that our students can go to a Catholic camp (*hint, donate to the ACA, hint*).
Memorial Day Parade
I cannot attend this year, but I want to recommend to everyone else that they attend the Bellingham Memorial Day parade on Saturday. Specifically, I want to recommend that you sit your family in front of Assumption Catholic Church and School. It is a super fun event, and every year I try to push having a Catholic section right in front of our church. Sometimes, the staff manages to keep the church open during the parade (non-churched people are always super curious about the inside of the big church they always drive past), so it can be an opportunity for a little street evangelization, too.
Epistle to Diognetus
Finally, this week in the Office of Readings we were treated to my favorite selection in the entire Office, a fragment of the Epistle to Diognetus (~A.D. 130). I want to reproduce that for you here.
Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.
Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.
Fr. Moore 