Because of my vow of celibacy, there are a number of chickens that will never come home   to roost, and many of the express or implicit warnings of my mom and dad throughout the years will not come back to bite me. That is to  say, I was a particularly whiny,  one-track mind child, and I had a real propensity for sticking  with a point until everyone around me was deeply irritated. But even though I may hold the  world record for repeating phrases like “I don’t want to go to Gogi’s house” or “Are we there yet?” the most times on a single car ride, I will never learn patience from hearing my own children   follow in my deeply grating footsteps.
 
This, of course, means that I am still a largely impatient person, and it shows in many of the things I do as a pastor. I am anxious for the public announcement of which priests will be in which families so that I can finally get things moving.     Downtown has been pumping the brakes for weeks now, and I am losing my mind because there is so much work to do, whether it’s here or somewhere else, and I desperately want to start planning and executing. It’s not ideal, because I’m probably irritating people about these big issues behind the scene, but I am hoping that my preferential bias towards action will pay off in the long run.

In the meantime, as we build up towards the implementation of Beacons of Light, I want you all to join me in a few important steps of preparation:
 
· Pray for the success of this initiative,  because it could mean the difference        between effectively spreading the Gospel  to more souls and simply continuing to   hemorrhage people.
 
· Prepare for changes, even big ones. We have been blessed with great staff and volunteers in our region, and the continued success moving into our identity as a  Family of Parishes will be contingent on everyone continuing to discern God’s call and generously respond. But as we face the possibility of changes in our clergy, staff, and ways of doing things, we have to mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves for whatever God sends our way.
 
· Discern God’s Will for yourself and for all  of us. The way we’ve always done things has yielded mixed results, and part of being a parish in the third Christian millennium means an adaptability and willingness to prune the old so that new ministries may come to the fore. Listen to what God is asking you to do so that we can each be invested in this new parish family.
 
Prayers always,
Fr. McC