Dear Parishioners:
Sweltering greetings from the rectory! I hope everyone had a pleasant July 4th weekend and that you have weathered the heat and humidity of this week. For me, it gets too hot when it hits 70 degrees and I prefer partially cloudy days, not direct sunlight! My cheap Irish skin was not meant for long periods of direct sun!
First off, I want to thank everyone who helped with the Parish Clean-up on the 4th of July. There is a list of the volunteers in the bulletin, but we may have missed one or two people. I apologize if I did. I especially want to thank the Knights of the Columbus and the School Fathers’ Guild for all their work. We are also starting the work for the Family Fall Festival. It should be a lot of fun, but we do need a small army of volunteers. If you were not able to attend the meeting this past Wednesday but you still want to help out, give a call and leave your name at the rectory. The festival should be a lot of fun!
While summer is traditionally a time to relax, you would never know it around here. Summer camp is in full swing, as are the Boys & Girls Basketball leagues, Dek Hockey and the Adult softball league. Things are really humming around here! There are numerous young adults and teen counselors helping. A few years ago, I received a letter from a parishioner who was reading an article from her Advanced Nursing Degree Program. The article focused on the correlation between church attendance and better health.
The article began by focusing on a study of a town called Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was a tightly knit Italian American community organized around family and the Catholic Church. Even though the residents ate a high-fat diet and had high levels of smoking, the incidence of heart disease was low. Researchers attributed this to the tightly-knit family and church-orientated lifestyle. Interestingly enough, when people moved away from Church
and family, the incidence of heart disease rose dramatically.
Numerous other studies have indicated that belonging to a Church (or temple or mosque) was associated with lower blood pressure, less hypertension, and fewer health problems in the future, especially among the elderly. A National Health Interview Survey followed 21,000 people for more than eight years. The survey concluded that you would live to about 83 years of age if you attended Church more than once a week. On the other hand, if you never
attended Church or very infrequently, you were estimated to live only 75 years!
Moral of the story: Stay healthy: Go to Church!
Remember: Together, we can do something beautiful for God.
In Christ,
Fr. Brian