January 09 Kandili
A MESSAGE FROM FATHER LOU
“Every Generation” Glorifies Our Loving Lord
2009 marks the 25th Anniversary of our St. Catherine Parish. We are so grateful to our loving Lord for His Grace and Divine Presence throughout the years. We are thankful for the blessings of our hierarchs, Bishop Anthimos and Metropolitan Isaiah, for the faithful service of our clergy, founding pastor, Father Dean Talagan, Fathers Dimitrios Nikoloudakis, Paul Fedec, Evan Armatas, Dino Sinos, and Deacons Christodoulos Vigil and Chris Zinis, both of blessed memory. Finally, we praise God for you, the stewards of St. Catherine. Thank you for your faithful stewardship of time, talents and treasures as an offering to our Lord. Thank you, founding members and families. Thank you, Parish Council members, Philoptochos members, youth workers, teachers, singers, chanters, bakers, cleaners, staff and volunteers of every ministry area, visitors and worshipers one and all for your faithfulness. As we look upon our St. Catherine Parish today, we are a diverse community with individuals from Greek, Slavonic, Romanian, Middle Eastern, Bulgarian Orthodox roots. We are also individuals and families from a variety of Christian and religious backgrounds who have chosen Orthodox Christianity as our pathway to Christ. In the context of the beautiful tapestry of our backgrounds we are interwoven as one blessed family in Christ. For this reason we have chosen the theme “Every Generation” in order to celebrate our Silver Anniversary. I invite each and everyone of you to join with Presbytera Marsha and me as we look into the past, not only of the 25 years of St. Catherine Parish, but into our own roots to discover the vast and diverse blessings of our ancestors here and abroad. They have served to provide a foundation for our lives in general and as the worshiping community of St. Catherine. This theme is also the focus of a Lily Grant that our Parish and I have been awarded for the summer of 2010. It is a “Pastor and Parish Renewal” grant for a sabbatical that began with the question “What would make your heart sing?” As I pondered the proposal and in the light of my mother’s recent passing, I had a deep desire to connect with our family roots in Greece and various European countries. Our portion of the sabbatical will be to travel to those countries with our children and grandchildren to connect with our past. We invite you also to connect with your past in order to help you better define who you are today. We, again, are from beautifully diverse backgrounds coming to our common Christian faith as a worshipping community in Christ. We will celebrate this diversity in unity with a variety of events over the next two years. We begin our 25th anniversary Celebration, “Every Generation” on the weekend of June 13-14, 2009 with a banquet Saturday evening, followed by a family celebration brunch after the Sunday Hierarchical Divine Liturgy. We will conclude with a family retreat at the YMCA retreat of the Rockies in the summer of 2010. From the first Divine Liturgy on April 1, 1984 at Slavens Elementary School to the present day, we glorify our loving Lord for His grace and faithfulness. We thank His blessed Mother and our constant intercessor, St. Catherine the Great Martyr for their ever present prayers and thank each of you, as well as those faithful ones of blessed memory for helping to make our parish such a faithful and special one – for His glory. On behalf of our clergy, Parish Council, Ministry Teams and Staff, have a beautiful, blessed, healthy and glorious New Year joining “Every Generation” in glorifying the Lord.