From Pastor’s Column: Fr. Justus Alaeto 

Blessings to you my brothers and sisters, as we make an effort every day to keep the pace of making the word of God transform our lives, our blood, and flesh daily to become the Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus’ very own life. Even though we have so many things that challenge our lives every day, we also have many good things we thank God for every day.

In the last Pastor’s Column, I updated you about a few things taking place including our music director at Star of the Sea who will be moving very soon to the U.S. Virgin Islands with his family. Between now and the end of summer, I shall be updating you about a few things, changes, and events we might be doing to better serve your spiritual needs and the parish. Our music coordinator Ed August’s thank you lunch is scheduled after Mass in the parish hall on June 2, 2019. That would be a good time for all parishioners to come and express gratitude to Ed and his family for his generosity and gift to our parish. Ed never charged us for the music throughout his time with us here in the parish. We are very grateful to him and his wonderful family. Please, let’s come that day to say thank you. In the month of June, I will be gone for pilgrimage to Rome, Assisi, and the Holy Land with some of us from the parish and people from other parishes. Please, keep us in your prayers while we are on the pilgrimage trip. We shall also be praying for you. If you have any special request you want me to pray for at those holy sites, please write them down and give them to me. I will be very happy to add them to our prayers or privately add them to our Mass intentions.

Within the time I will be away for about two weeks, we shall be having with us, starting from this weekend, Father Henry Nwamadu, who is currently studying in Rome and working for the Archdiocese of Firenze in Italy. He is currently rounding up his doctorate studies in Bio-Ethics. He is a very good and wonderful priest. Father will be with us for a couple of weeks. He will be helping us with Masses, confession, and sick calls. Archbishop Sample will also be issuing faculties to father as well. Please, help me welcome Father Henry Nwamadu. For any other things about parish ministry or faith formation or registration, please direct them to Sr. Mary Fidel. She will guide you on that till I come back.

Another Update: The other nun with us, Sister Christiana Nwachukwu has been transferred to Detroit, Michigan by their Superior General. Another nun has been assigned to Crescent City and she will be residing with Sister Mary Fidel Ike, SJS. The new nun coming to replace Sister Christiana is Sister Philo Cordis, SJS. She will be assisting Father Gregg with Faith formation in Crescent City, California. Please, help me welcome Sister Philo Cordis, SJS, whenever you see her around.

Upcoming work around the parish: I am very pleased to announce that the Archdiocese approved grants of about $8,500 for the Safety Grants I applied for recently. We shall add the other half to fix safety issues within our parish premises. We invited experts to look at damages we have in the parish building and driveways. The Archdiocese evaluated all of them as well with pictures. The work will resume as soon as possible this month or beginning of next month. Also, I received a $7, 000.00 donation from friends in Medford and Washington. We will use that to complete our ministry room in the hall and the other meeting room. We will also use part of it for our new parish signpost that will arrive soon. Very soon, we will resume working on remodeling the new sacristy. A generous parishioner donated $10,000 for that. We are hoping to complete the project as soon as we can. Also, someone promised to pay for marble tiles for our sanctuary. When we get that going, I will let you know. Recently, there has been maintenance work going on in the women’s bathroom. Hopefully, it is completed by now. We had big damage there last week. Our brother Randy Hall is repairing it. We bought the equipment, and Randy donated the labor. Thank Randy for donating his time for us. There are many things we gradually need to fix so that they will not turn into bigger damage and necessitate a huge amount of money to fix in the future.

We are doing a few things at St. Charles in Gold Beach as well. We will be getting a new sound system in the church there. We recently received a $1,000.00 donation for Gold Beach, and that will go into the church account. A generous parishioner at Gold Beach has promised a new sound system. Please help me keep all these good donors in our prayers. Next Month, parish adoration will be dedicated for them and their needs. I am thanking you all also for your own constant support and wishing God’s Blessings upon you. We are doing the very best we can, and the Lord Jesus the Savior and the Blessed Virgin Mary have been supporting and guiding us.

Our next "All Parish Adoration and Marian Devotion" will be at Star of the Sea on Friday, May 31, 2019 from 5:00pm and First Saturday Mass on June 1, 2019 at 8:30am. Please, come with your family and bring all your needs to Jesus the Savior and His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Father Justus Alaeto, Pastor