St. Francis de Sales Church

• Daily Mass for the St. Francis community will be held at St. Elizabeth's, Monday through Thursday, at 9 am. Msgr. Krebs will celebrate on Wednesday and Fr. Raul the other days.
• A question has come up about St. Francis' Masses being held at St. Elizabeth's. The 5 pm Saturday, 10:30 am Sunday, and 12 noon Sunday Masses are not regular St. Elizabeth's Masses. They will be presided by Fr. Raul and are for St. Francis parishioners (though, as always, anyone is welcome to attend). In addition, after the Masses this weekend Swede Stelzer will speak to give an update on the progress of rebuilding our church. Please come and show your support for St. Francis Parish as you worship our Lord.
• Starting today the Hispanic community will hold Stations of the Cross Fridays at 6 pm at St. Elizabeth's. Stations in English are available at St. Elizabeth's at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, March 27, and on April 3, 10, and 17. English Stations are also held at St. Joseph's on Wednesdays at 6:45 pm.
• ***Correction*** Morris Cossette's funeral will be Saturday the 23rd at St. Joseph's at 11 am, not 10 am as originally posted.
• As we clean up and begin to rebuild, we expect that all ordinarily scheduled events will take place (exception: see below). Please contact the event leaders or watch this space for the locations of the events. Going forward activities will only be cancelled due to weather, according to our weather policy. The Salad Bar Luncheon will be held as scheduled on May 1 but at St. Joseph's in the Gathering Place.
• There is a wedding scheduled at St. Elizabeth's on Saturday the 23rd. Saturday evening Mass on that day is cancelled and we ask all Saturday folks to go to St. Joseph's at 5 pm with Confessions at 4 pm.
• (from Swede Stelzer, Parish Management Coordinator) Comstock Construction has the exposed ends of the building sheeted and covered to keep the weather out of the undamaged part of the building.
   
  From now on, absolutely NO PARKING in the back-parking lot.  Comstock will be mobilizing a crane on Monday morning; the City has delivered one large dumpster and two more coming.  The crane will hoist the dumpster into the open hole, 5-6 workers will fill the dumpster which is inside the parish center and when filled with debris the crane will hoist it back out, place it on a truck and replace it with an empty dumpster.  They anticipate they will be done with this in 3-4 days and by then we will have determined what kind of covering to place over the open area of the parish center, if any.
   
  I received the 174-page copy of the Diocese’s master insurance certificate and spent the evening studying the sections that impact us.  The Diocesan lawyer does not have the expertise required to protect our interest in this disaster so they are recommending a local attorney who I will be contacting this morning.
   
  I have obtained the proxies necessary from the Bishop for Fr. Raul to enter into contracts with others to clean up the mess and reconstruct what was damaged.
   
  Fr. Raul and Dennis jointly counted the money in the safe from Ash Wednesday, Last Saturday’s Mass and the special collections.  Dennis also turned over money from t-shirt sales.  The deposits were made by Fr. Raul into the bank.  We will have offertory taken at Masses held in Dilworth, they will be held in the night depository at Bell Bank immediately after the mass and will then be picked up from the Bank for the money counters which will meet on Tuesdays at St Joes in an office provided for St Francis.
   
  The salad bar luncheon will continue to be held only the location is changed to occur in the St Joes Gathering space.  We have their space for set-up on April 30 and the luncheon on May 1.  Sharon Menge is the chair and she is meeting with several ladies today to coordinate the event.  If anyone asks, let them know.  As would be expected, they may lose diners from Clay County or DMV because of the location change but it may work to their advantage also if promoted properly.
   
  Dennis has all mail held at the post office and he will be picking it up daily.  I am expecting original official documents to arrive today and Monday when they arrive, call me Dennis.
   
  The Wednesday maintenance crew has been working their buns off also securing the gathering space, Mary Martha kitchen, main kitchen and education wing from the weather.  Whatever happens today is beyond anything they or Comstock could prepare for.  Hopefully, when this storm blows over we have not suffered any further damage.  There will not be any workers on site today or tomorrow.  Everything goes full speed on Monday.
   
• We have been in discussions with attorneys, engineers, chancery, contractors, volunteer maintenance and insurance claims supervisors as well as phone calls to office. Swede continues to be present in the office to be available to contractors on site and companies involved with preservation of the undamaged building and just a land line.  Yesterday, Comstock placed plywood sheeting on the exposed walls of the gathering space and the kitchen and upper room on the south.  They will finish the preservation tasks today.  The storm comes in tomorrow and hopefully we are able to survive the high winds and the trusses over the kitchen remain standing.  Comstock will be bringing a crane on site and will pick the debris out of the parish center from on top.  The two sets of double doors from the gathering space have been secured with water dams to keep the rain out of the gathering space and the same with the kitchen and education wing.  There are eight heat ducts around the perimeter of the parish center that have been converted to act as drains for melting snow and rain.  Two of the furnaces in the mechanical room have been pulled and the ductwork under the floor will gather the water to the pedestal the furnaces sat on.  We have placed a trash pump in that collection bonnet and will pump rain or snow water from the ducts to the sewer.  These actions will assure the gathering space remains undamaged.  The gathering space carpet has been vacuumed and now looks like nothing happened.
• This weekend, the St. Francis community will be celebrating Mass at St. Elizabeth's in Dilworth. Saturday afternoon confessions will be at 4 pm and Mass at 5 pm. Sunday morning Mass will be 8 am at Georgetown as usual, 10:30 am at St. Elizabeth's (to accommodate their schedule), and 12 noon in Spanish also at St. Elizabeth's. All other Masses and events are cancelled at least through the 17th of March.
• Let us praise and thank Our Lord that no one was injured. A structural engineer will be checking the parts of the building that have not been damaged to see if it is safe to occupy. We will know more after that. Watch this space for more information as it becomes available.

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Praying the Rosary

The Rosary is very nearly a perfect form of Christian prayer, being a devotion both to Our Blessed Mother and to her son, Jesus. It takes only about 15-20 minutes a day to say one set of mysteries, and the benefits are tremendous: stronger families, peace of heart, spiritual understanding.

The 15 Promises of the Rosary

Download the following two documents to guide you in saying the Rosary:

How to Pray the Rosary

The Holy Rosary of Our Lady, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary
(print double-sided, then crease in the middle to make a booklet)

Pray the Rosary online with people from all over the world:

comepraytherosary.org

• You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.
• (Repeat 3 times) O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You!

• (On each “Our Father” bead of the rosary, pray) Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
• (On each of the 10 “Hail Mary” beads, pray) For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

• (Repeat 3 times) Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

• Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.