From the Pastor's Desk | September 8, 2024

Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign 

This weekend, we are announcing the public phase of the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Capital Campaign.  As you are aware through mailings,various pulpit announcements, and recitation of the capital campaign prayer, Bishop Boyea has announced the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign to raise $70 million for Catholic education across the Diocese of Lansing.  These funds will go toward four goals: 

• Mission - to attract, form, train, and retain excellent and faithful teachers and administrators (25% of our teachers throughout the diocese make less than $40,000 per year).

• Affordable - grow tuition assistance for current and new families. 

• Accessible - assist students with special needs and enhance services at our four regional high schools.

• Local Initiatives - 20% of our diocesan goal will come back to St. Martha Parish and School for our own local initiatives intending to bolster our educational offerings through the school and faith formation.  

Every parish in the Diocese of Lansing is participating in the campaign including St. Martha Parish and School.  Our participation goal of $1.4 million will help Bishop Boyea raise the $70 million for the campaign.  I strongly urge you to watch Bishop Boyea’s video announcing and explaining this campaign linked here.   

We also have a unique opportunity to raise additional funds for our own local needs as part of the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign.  In February of 2024, we conducted an enrollment study for both the school and our faith formation programs.  You can access the enrollment study here.  Two things struck us from the study: 1) Looking at various demographic data, it is projected that 3,869 elementary age children will be living within a five mile radius of St. Martha Parish and School by 2028, an increase of 5.7%, and  2) The need for space to meet current needs and to expand the preschool program.  

In April of this year, based on this data and other identified needs, we presented four initiatives to the parish through in-person interviews and a general survey in order to prioritize our future.  Those initiatives included:

• Constructing a building for our outreach programs including St. Vincent de Paul.

• Constructing five to six classrooms in order to remove the temporary classrooms from the parish hall, expand the preschool program from one classroom to two classrooms, expand Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to include level III, and build a proper science lab.

• Establish and grow an education endowment to help fund the Affordable Tuition Fund annually.

• Renovating the parish hall. 

In May/June of this year, we provided the results of these interviews and surveys to the parish noting that constructing five to six classrooms and growing the education endowment tested the highest out of the four.  Based on this data and information and in conversations with diocesan leadership, the Parish Finance Council (FC) and the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC), following careful study and analysis, both unanimously approved the effort to raise funds in a combined campaign for the two objectives that tested the highest:

• To construct five to six new classrooms and renovate the parish hall. 

• Any funds in excess of the cost of construction will go to fund the newly established St. Martha Education Endowment.

The cost of construction for the new classrooms and hall renovation is approximately $3.8 million over and above the $1.4 million diocesan goal for the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign.  In total, we are seeking to raise approximately $5.2 million for these initiatives.  

This is an exciting endeavor as we seek to prepare St. Martha Parish and School for a healthy  future!  The time is now because the needs both already exist (we’ve already turned away 18 families for preschool this year due to full enrollment) and will only increase into the future (as noted through the enrollment study).  

I am happy to report that we have already reached our diocesan goal for the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign meaning that every dollar pledged at this point will go toward the local initiatives here at St. Martha Parish and School!  That is amazing news!  But, we have a long way to go to reach our goal and we need your help!  

In the next weeks, you will all receive an appeal letter from Bishop Boyea and myself to be part of this campaign as we try to position both the diocesan schools and St. Martha Parish and School for the future.  I ask you to prayerfully consider the amount you might be able to give toward this initiative.  It is important to note that these donations are pledged over five years to give you the flexibility that you need to make a significant impact.  If, for example, you are able to write a check for $5,000 today, I humbly ask that you consider making a pledge of $25,000 over five years.  I am asking you to give sacrificially, which means there will and should be a pinch, knowing that these funds are going toward the future of the parish and school.

Blessed Solanus Casey reminds us to, “Thank God ahead of time.”  So, I thank you in advance for your great generosity and care of St. Martha Parish and School!  

Annual Fall Fundraising Appeal 

This weekend, we are also announcing the beginning of our annual fall fundraising appeal to benefit the youth of St. Martha Parish and School.  Why are we doing both at the same time?!  That is a fair question, and, to be completely honest, the timing simply worked out that way.  Nonetheless, we would be doing both fundraising appeals this calendar year anyway.    

More specifically, as I wrote above, the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars Campaign will help us position the parish and school for the future.  When we reach our fundraising goal of $5.2 million, the plan will be to take a bridge loan from the diocese against pledges to begin the design and construction phase of the proposed project as soon as feasible.  

Our annual fall fundraiser is both future oriented and helps us meet current operating educational and classroom needs.  Funds from previous years’ fundraisers have helped us invest significantly in safety, security, and IT and will help us continue this investment now and into the future.  The annual fall fundraiser also helps us replace worn out technology such as Chromebooks and invest in the curriculum as we slowly transition into more Catholic liberal education in partnership with the diocese and the other schools within the diocese.  Funds from the annual appeal also go towards our robust Faith Formation programming as we seek to form intentional disciples who do not attend our Catholic schools.    

In short, we rely on this fundraising appeal every year, and I have no doubt it will be even more successful than last year.  I am looking forward to celebrating with everyone on November 16 at the auction and dinner, so mark your calendar today!  It is always so much fun!  

Again, thank you in advance for your generosity and care of St. Martha Parish and School!  I cannot convey my gratitude adequately.  

Gospel Reflection

In the Order of Baptism of Children, after the child has been baptized, we pray what are called the explanatory rites.  These explanatory rites include: 

• The anointing after baptism with Sacred Chrism

• Clothing with the white garment 

• Handing on of the lighted candle 

• The Ephphetha prayer 

In the Ephphetha prayer, we pray, “May the Lord Jesus who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive his word with your ears and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father. Amen.” 

After reading and listening to today’s Gospel, you can probably tell where in Scripture we take this particular part of baptism from.  We are members of the baptized and, because of our baptism, we rightly call ourselves Christians - for in baptism we die to sin and rise to new life through Christ our Lord.  

Today’s Gospel is a call to a reawakening within ourselves.  As we grow older, as we move through life and experience both the good and the bad that life throws at us, it is easy to become closed off.  It is easy to become absorbed with both ourselves and with the things of this world.  It becomes easier to become more self-sufficient and even isolated.  It becomes easier to tend toward cynicism, to care less and less about our true destiny of eternal life and communion with God, or to even adopt a fatalism mentality when it comes to our trajectory in this life.  Scripture uses the phrase a hardened heart to describe these thoughts, feelings, and desires.    

In the Gospel, as Jesus takes aside the man with the speech impediment, his prayer is not only that his ears be opened and that he be healed.  Even more importantly, Jesus’s prayer is that the man be open to Jesus himself as the Messiah; that the man be opened to everything that God has for him; that the man be open to salvation offered by Christ himself.    

What closes us off from receiving what God has for us?  What closes us off from receiving God’s holy Word?  What closes us off from deeper faith in Jesus Christ?  What closes us off from the sacramental life of the Church?  What closes us off from communion with both the Church and with each other?  In light of the Gospel today, perhaps these are questions worth praying with.

Perhaps we should reach all the way back to our baptism when the priest or deacon prayed the Ephphetha prayer over us.  May our prayer today be just that, “May the Lord Jesus who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that I may receive his word with my ears and profess the faith with my lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father. Amen.” 

The two words I think are most important for us in the Ephphetha prayer are open and receive.  May we not only be open but may we also receive God’s holy Word.     

Know of my prayers for you all!