The Presence of Jesus in our World

Dear Sisters and Brothers –

Thursday night, 26 young people from our parish received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Special congratulations to all of you! You have been preparing for this for two years, deepening your relationship with Jesus, and learning more about the Church and your place in it. We are grateful for your generous response to God’s love for you, and we look forward to seeing how you become more active members of our faith community, sharing with us the abundant gifts that God has given you!

And on Sunday, another 11 youngsters received their First Holy Communion. We welcome all of you to the Table of the Lord as you meet Jesus in a new and profound way; Jesus, our Good Shepherd, our Life and Resurrection, who cares for us in our every need. May you always feel part of this family of faith, and we look forward to the ways your joy and wonder reveal to the rest of us the presence of Jesus in our world.

From the perspective of the parish staff, with the pandemic receding more definitively into the past and the Preservation & Promise campaign behind us, we are looking to the future and asking, “Where is God calling us?” and “What is God asking of us at this new threshold?” In order to better answer those questions, the staff and the lay leaders of our parish have been practicing discernment and growing in our ability to notice how and where God is active in our parish life. Another tool to use as we look forward is strategic planning. I hope to employ both tools, as well as the methodology espoused by Pope Francis for the Church in the 2023-2024 Synod on Synodality, and design a process over the coming summer and fall, with an eye to engaging that process next spring.

To help us do that, I have created a new staff position, which replaces that of the Director of Development, a post held by Emily McFarland for the past three and a half years. In that time, Emily stewarded and successfully brought to completion our $27.4 million Preservation & Promise campaign. She was also responsible for deepening the understanding more broadly among the staff that development is relationship-based and that one powerful tool in that is a robust, accurate database. Emily also was the voice of Laudato Si’ at the staff table, always reminding us to consider the effect of our parish events on Mother Earth. As Emily departs St. Ignatius, I want to express my gratitude to her for her work among us these years and wish her God’s very best in her new endeavors.

I am happy to share with you that I have hired parishioner Patrick Kennedy to be our first Director of Advancement, the new position mentioned above. Patrick is familiar to many of you. When we began the campaign in the summer of 2020, CCS Fundraising sent him to work with us as the Campaign Director, which he did through January 2023. Since leaving us, Patrick has remained with CCS (eventually becoming a Vice President in the company), working with the National AIDS Memorial and the Sierra Club at different times. Patrick is a proven leader and development professional, and he comes to us with strategic planning experience. His responsibilities will include all those formerly held by the Director of Development, as well as strategic planning. I am delighted that Patrick has come back to St. Ignatius. He knows us, he knows you, and as he said, “I believe in the mission of St. Ignatius Parish.” It’s a delight to note that he and his mother, Barb Kennedy, our Office Manager, were both received into the Church at our recent Easter Vigil. Patrick, welcome back, and we look forward to what God will do at St. Ignatius through you.

Oremus pro invicem.