Happy Sunday!

Things continue to get moving here on campus. Verso l’Alto had their second meeting this past Monday. It’s great to have so many high schoolers coming to grow in their faith. Our religious education meetings began with parents in English and Spanish. Things are humming along. This month we also received another installment from the Together Let Us Go Forth campaign in the amount of $33,000. Some of these funds will be going to replace air conditioning units around campus, three of which have already been replaced in Weidner Hall and the parish office. We hope to replace more units in the coming year. Thank you to everyone for giving us the opportunity to make this happen.

Happy Sunday!

Our Verso l’Alto youth group got off to a great start this past week. It was great to see so many of our high school students present for the first night of the semester. I am incredibly grateful to our core team of volunteers who helped make the night such a success. This week we begin our religious education classes for the new year. Please keep all of our families and students in your prayers as they begin this year of preparation for First Reconciliation and First Communion.

Happy Sunday!

I am very excited to announce that we reached our matching gift! Thank you so much to everyone who signed up for recurring online gifts or who increased their gift. The Diocese of Phoenix informed me that we would receive the match of $27,060 in October. This is a wonderful accomplishment and we are very thankful for all of you in helping us reach this goal.

Happy Sunday!

September is here and there is much to be excited about. First, a big thank you to everyone who participated in the Matching Gift opportunity. While official numbers are not complete, it looks like we have met the matching goal! This is truly something that took everyone doing a little part to achieve a great goal. Thank you!

Our Religious Education and Youth Ministry programs are getting ready to begin. As of now, the Diocese of Phoenix is issuing guidelines to continue to allow the size of public meetings to increase. As we all know, the situation has been rather fluid. I am grateful to each of you and our wonderful staff for your flexibility during this time. Life slowly continues to head back to “normal”.

Happy Sunday!

The end of August is already here! This summer has flown by (except for those weeks of 110 degrees and greater). I want to offer a humongous thanks to everyone who has participated in our matching gift campaign. We are so grateful to the family who has donated the $27,060 and to each of you for offering a recurring online gift to help us on our way to the match. If you haven’t participated yet, you can still do so through tomorrow (August 31st).

Happy Sunday!

This week is one of my favorites in the liturgical calendar. We have a wonderful line up of saints’ feast days and memorials. Tomorrow, the 24th, is the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle. The 25th is St. Louis of France. And on the 27th and 28th, we celebrate St. Monica and St. Augustine, respectively. While much can be said about all of these saints, I’d like to draw your attention to St. Louis, who ruled as King of France. In the Office of Readings for his memorial we read a letter he wrote to his son as a spiritual testament.

Hello,

My name is Bill Schneider and I am a deacon candidate (currently as an Acolyte) here at St. Joan of Arc (SJA) parish. God willing, I am scheduled for ordination this coming November. My family and I are long time parishioners, with our children attending a total of 6 years at the wonderful preschool here at SJA. (My wife made sure I included how much we appreciated the preschool staff giving our children such a great start to their schooling). My youngest son is 10 years old and he has been an Altar Server here for about 6 months before the pandemic. I am probably a lot like many of you in that I really enjoy sports, reading, hiking, spending time with my family, and a good frozen strawberry margarita on a hot day. At home, I am our “pool guy” and keep the water sparkling for cannon balls! Some of you may know me as “Dr. Bill” while I have been completing my diaconate formation here at SJA. I make my living as a pediatric emergency room physician at Banner Children’s Hospital where I feel blessed to care for the most amazing children and their families.

St. Joan of Arc Parishioners,

My name is Andy Lambros. For those of you who don’t know, for the last five years, I have been the Coordinator of Stewardship here at SJA. The same year I started working here, I was accepted into the diaconate formation program as part of the 2020 Cohort. Fr. Connealy has asked me to share a little bit about myself and my journey to be ordained a deacon with all of you.

Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone has had a good week. Our second reading this Sunday from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans seems to speak straight to our present times. He writes, “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” St. Paul’s premise is beautiful, he gets right to the heart of things asking the most important question, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” He correctly presupposes that this is the most important thing. He doesn’t ask what can destroy our nation (indeed, Israel had experienced its near collapse multiple times) because even that cannot separate us from God.

Happy Sunday!

A big thanks to all those who have so generously helped us on our goal to meet the matching gift we presented last weekend. It is so gratifying to see so many supporting the parish in this marvelous way. I am grateful to God for the family who offered this gift and to all those who have responded. If you haven’t heard yet, a family from outside of St. Joan of Arc has offered us $27,060 as a matching gift. All you have to do is begin giving a recurring gift online, or if you already offer a recurring gift, increase it by any amount and the whole amount will be matched. All gifts given through August will go towards the match. Thank you so much!

Happy Sunday!

This Sunday we hear the parable of bad seed being sown amongst the good seed. An enemy comes and sows bad seed in the field of wheat. When the servants ask their master if they should pull up the weeds he tells them, “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.” At times it can be tempting to think it's our job to root out evil entirely. As Christians, we certainly have a responsibility to speak for truth and goodness. And yet, we are servants of the Master. Wherever we find roadblocks to our task to bring more goodness, to share the light of Christ, we are invited to surrender to Jesus more completely. He is the true Master of the Harvest. We labor but ultimately He is the one who brings about the good work.

Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone has had a safe summer so far. Over these past few months things have been very different. We are so fortunate to be back at Mass, continuing perpetual adoration and confessions. These things don’t just happen though. I am so grateful to all of our amazing volunteers who have given their time to help our liturgies run smoothly and our adoration chapel to remain open. We have so many generous people here who have given extra hours of time to make sure things have run smoothly. Thank you so much to all of you!

Growing up in an Italian-American home on the south side of Chicago, I was blessed with a great deal of love from my family, a constant supply of the most delicious food in the world, and…saints! The saints, our heavenly intercessors, were a big part of our lives. And my earliest memories of any saint are of a broad-faced nun with large, luminous eyes, a warm, welcoming smile and a big bow beneath her chin.