Fr. Rojin has been doing such a good job of communicating with the parish that I have not written a column in a long time. Let me see if I can still do it.

Two events in the past week have gotten me thinking about the foundations in our lives; the things that ground us. Last Sunday I did the Baptism of the first child of Megan and Doug Strauss. You will not recognize the name until I tell you that Jackson Ryder Stauss is the latest great grandchild of John and Lee Kuczo. Those names you know, John and Lee, along with so many others, are the rock or foundation of this parish.

The parish of St. Jerome is a living entity, a community of so many good and kind people, all gathered around the Table of the Lord Sunday after Sunday. We are a community that tries to come away from Sunday Eucharist ever more committed to being in the world what we have just received: Jesus himself. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ to be the Body of Christ in the world.

This coming Saturday we are having a huge funeral for Maureen Thresher, a woman of great goodness and Grace. Early on Saturday the men’s group will gather to be another living stone on the Foundation of our parish. Then the women of the parish led by Domenica Gioiella and Annette Maiberger will lead a funeral ministry team in providing a meal for more than a hundred people. They, and the whole team, are part of our foundation, our rock.

This parish is a living, dynamically changing, group of People. Without the Lord Jesus at the center and so many key people who work to build us up, we would not be who we are. May the parish of St Jerome flourish for years to come.