My Dear Parishioners,
Thank God for the nicer/cooler weather this week, not as hot as the last few weeks. Please stay cool physically and mentally so that you may live each day to the fullest and always be full of love for God and for each other. Next weekend, August 3rd and 4th, Father Curtis Hecker will be here to celebrate all weekend Masses and hear confessions prior to every Mass. Please take this special time to go to confession to a guest priest. Fr. Curtis is a young chaplain priest at Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School. He loves education. He loves to help teenagers grow in their Catholic faith and teach them how to deal with this life. Please welcome him to our parish and be sure to thank him in person for celebrating the Holy Sacraments for us. There will be no daily Mass from Wednesday, July 31st to Friday, August 2nd as I will be in Carthage, Missouri for the Marian Days. On my way, probably I will stop by Pittsburg to visit a priest friend, Fr. Jerome Spexarth, pastor of the parish there. We used to spend a lot of time together when we were in the seminaries in Minnesota and Ohio. He is a great, dedicated and holy priest. The Carthage Marian Days is an annual pilgrimage where 60-80 thousand people, mostly Vietnamese Catholics, gather together to celebrate their Catholic faith and to give special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course, we will honor our ancestors, the Vietnamese Martyrs too. There are people coming from Vietnam too, especially priests and religious sisters. Our Bishop Kemme has been joining this special event for years and he will be there again next week. I have been going every year since 1986. As a priest, I will be helping with a lot of confessions, both in English and in Vietnamese. Of course, I will concelebrate at Holy Masses and will be praying for you all. Please know that you are dear to me and I will pray for you every day, especially at Holy Masses. My wish is that we will all make it to the kingdom of God. School Registration: If you have not registered your children to attend our All Saints Catholic school yet, please do so. The best gift in life is the gift of God to them and the love for God in their hearts. Loving God with all one’s heart, mind and soul and loving others as oneself is the way of life for all of us. Please register your children to attend our school. Thank You! Back to School Get-Together: Everyone is invited to our back to school evening on Sunday, August 11th with much food and fun. Our teachers will be available to meet everyone and to show our children their classrooms, etc.… You don’t have to have kids in school to support Catholic education and to let our children know that you care for them with your time, talent and treasure. We are called to do good unto each other, especially our children, for they are the future of our church and families. Love you all, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Blessings from our Lord Jesus, His beloved Mother Mary, and from all the angels and saints to you all. What a weekend God blessed us with -- the beautiful Holy Masses and the celebration we had last weekend. I was so pleased to see so many people at every Mass and to see everyone so happy. Happy that we have God and each other in our lives, especially the Bishop. Happy that we have been loving and serving God together. Happy that we are blessed with much, including a nice house and the great food we had for everyone. We thank God and each other. I want to especially thank the many people who helped with the renovation of the house, those who helped so much with the meals last weekend such as our Knights and our Altar Society ladies, and everyone for coming and making us a church family. I also noticed that many people enjoyed my buck (Buckeye). I am so glad that the joy that I had in harvesting and having this special buck mounted were also enjoyed by many of you. He is a lucky buck, delighting many people. When I have the time, I will share with you how smart this buck was. It’s so true that nature knows best. Finally, as you have seen, the house is not completely done. I still have some work to be done, mostly painting. Also, there is no furniture for the living room and bedrooms yet nor window blinds. I will start looking for good deals. Pray for me for I don’t like to spend a lot of money. I also think it’s a sin for priests to live a luxurious lifestyle. Please know that most of the items in the house were donated or purchased at a discounted price, for example, the original price of the LG refrigerator at Lowes was $1,621, I got it for $382 brand new at Lowes and of course, no sales tax. School Registration: Please pray for our parents so that they will give their children the best education for their children’s mind and heart. There is no better education out there for God’s children than a Catholic education. A Catholic education will transform the minds and hearts of our children to be like Jesus’. Please know that Jesus invites all children to Him, “Let the children come to me.” Therefore, I will not reject any children from attending our All Saints Catholic School, unless their parents don’t believe in it and would not support All Saints with their time, talent and treasure. Please register your children to attend All Saints Catholic School. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer before our children come back to school, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Are you ready for some fun and fellowship? This weekend, July 13th & 14th, everyone is invited to the parish picnic and tour of the priest’s residence. Food and drinks will be served in the Fischer Center, dine-in only, no carry-out please. We want to make sure that we have enough food for everyone, and Bishop Kemme plus all priests of the diocese are invited too. Bishop will celebrate our 11am Mass and join us for lunch. What a blessing. Please enjoy each other’s company and enjoy our food. You are welcome to bring any dish to share if you would like, but if you can’t, it’s ok, for we will have steak, smoked chicken and potatoes for everyone. Let us thank God for each other, those who practice faithful stewardship of their time, talent and treasure, and those who have helped us tirelessly with the renovation of the new house. Priest’s Residence: I wish I could tell you that everything inside and outside the house is perfectly finished. We are blessed to have this house as a nice addition for our church; however, the house was built in 1937 and was vacant for a long time before we got possession of it. Because of this, there were many problems inside and out with leaks and mold. Upstairs: New sheetrock, paint, plumbing, electrical and remodeling all bathrooms with floor tile and one handicap accessible bedroom. We re-sanded and stained all the wood floors. The formal dining room is now the kitchen with a new door to the patio. The kitchen has granite and quartz countertops, cabinets are re-sanded and painted, crown molding added, and of course new appliances. The light fixtures in the kitchen area and the great room are original with LED bulbs. To save money, I kept the original glass wall. All the windows are new. The stain glass window was originally in the kitchen and I moved it to the great room. Downstairs: About 75% done with new framing, sheet rock, electrical, plumbing, paint, and new LED lights throughout the house. All leaks fixed, including in the sun room. Outside: It took a lot of concrete to pave the garage, driveway and around the house in the flower beds, which I did to keep water away from the house and for bugs and weed control. To save money, I placed the old concrete pieces south of the house to keep water away from the house and to create a garden area. I also moved all the extra dirt to the west and created a berm to keep the traffic noise down and pedestrians from crossing easily onto our property. We washed, scraped, primed and painted the outside. We planted about 200 bushes of golden privet hedge and forsythias, roses and fruit trees, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc. My vegetables are coming along. My favorite part of this house is the pond, where I can swim on hot summer days to save the church’s water for I need two to three showers a day. Anyone want to join me? Just kidding, the pond is for koi fish. This is my first time raising koi. I don’t have any fish in it yet, sorry. FYI the pond is my personal hobby, so I personally paid for it. Q.A.: Many people have asked me - which room is my bedroom. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter to me which one, more likely the one near my fish pond and mounted buck. Donations: Thanks everyone for your generous donations toward our building fund. If you wish to donate money toward new items in the house such as furniture, beds, window blinds, washer & dryer, etc.…please let Sandy/office know. Everything you donate will stay with the church forever. I would take a used washer & dryer if it is still working. Finally, I can’t wait to be with everyone and our Bishop for Holy Mass, to enjoy some great food and fellowship. Love you all, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
God bless America! God bless everyone too as we celebrate the 4th of July weekend. I hope everyone is enjoying the 4th of July celebration. Next weekend, July 13th and 14th, our church family will celebrate our annual parish picnic and blessing of the new priest’s residence. Open house starts on Saturday, July 13th after 4pm Mass. Sunday July 14th, open house after 8am Mass with coffee and donuts available. Food of steaks, smoked chicken and baked potatoes will be available for everyone on Saturday and on Sunday after 9:30am and 11am Mass. You are welcome to bring any dish that you would like to share, including desserts, vegetables, fruits, ice cream for the hot weather? Due to the hot weather in mid-July, we will have our meals in the Fischer Center, but you are free to eat outside if you feel like it. Please give us a hand to clean up after each meal so that the hall and the tables are clean and ready for the next crowd. Bishop Kemme will celebrate the 11am Mass, followed by a blessing of the priest’s residence and luncheon with us all. Everyone is invited to our Masses and meals on both days. Feel free to bring your family and friends, too, regardless if they are parishioners or not. It will be more fun with more people. We are blessed to have each other, let us celebrate our faith together and enjoy good food together. Please keep in mind that our church family is like our country of America, we are blessed with people from many different backgrounds, cultures and languages. We must learn to live in peace and appreciate each other. God loves us when we love each other. Vietnamese Food Sales: Congratulations to our parish for we raised $13,000 from the Vietnamese food sales. What a success and a blessing from God and from so many generous people, parishioners and non-parishioners alike, with their time, talent and treasure. Thank you everyone and please join our church family for our special picnic and appreciation next weekend - July 13th and 14th. We truly appreciate your sacrifice and love for our parish. God bless everyone, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
God bless our country of America. Happy 4th to everyone. As citizens of this blessed nation, let us thank God for the freedom, the peace and the prosperity she is bestowing upon us all. America is our land full of opportunities for everyone to live in peace with each other, to live in freedom to worship God, to work for our own benefit, to protect the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death, etc.… May we love our country and continue making her beautiful before God and others. God bless America, our sweet home. In God We Trust! Please join me in thanking God for our country and to pray for all the people of our land on Thursday, July 4th at 8am, in our church. There will be no 5:30pm Mass that day. Safety 1st: Please be safe in your travels for the holiday. Don’t forget to attend Holy Mass wherever you may be. There is always Holy Mass near your traveling areas if you really look into it or visit masstimes.org for Catholic churches near your travels. Sunday is the Lord’s day, the Holy Day of Obligation. In addition, please be extra cautious when you and your family, especially children, celebrate the 4th with fireworks. Fire can destroy homes and properties. It will also hurt or kill us. Please and please be careful with fire. Please be smart and never underestimate the danger of fire. Too many people have been so sorry for failing to be smart. True happiness does not come from worldly things or events but from the love and hearts of others and from the blessings of God. God bless you all. Thank you: On behalf of our church family, I would like to thank countless volunteers from our parish as well as from the other parishes for helping with our Vietnamese food sale last weekend. Although it was hot and humid during those days, we had so much fun together. Bishop Kemme also came and supported us with his own money as well. He likes Vietnamese food, too. Thank you, Bishop, and everyone for your generosity, hard work and your love for our church’s family. All Saints is blessed because of you. I’ll let you know as soon as possible how much we made. PS. Everyone is invited to our annual parish picnic and open house on July 13th & 14th with great food & fun. Bishop will celebrate the 11am Mass on Sunday, July 14th. Smoked chicken & steaks will be served after all Masses, except the 8am Mass—with coffee & donuts. It’s time to celebrate together and to thank God and each other for your faithful stewardship of time, talent and treasure to our church and school. God bless, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Thank you, Fr. Matthew Seigman, for celebrating the 9:30am and 11am Masses last Sunday. Father wanted to be with us and to celebrate Holy Masses with everyone in our parish. He loves our parish and he will come back again to be with us. I hope you enjoyed his time with us. Extra-Ordinary Eucharistic Ministers: Next Weekend, June 29th & 30th, at all Masses, immediately after the homily, I would like to invite all extra-ordinary ministers of our parish to come forward to receive a special blessing/commission. We want to thank God for your ministry and to ask for God’s blessings upon you all so that you may bring the Holy Eucharist to others. Please know that you are to wear your Sunday best for Holy Masses, to come up immediately after Father consumes from the cup/chalice, to wash your fingers after distributing Holy Communion, and finally to bow your head together before going back to your seat. Vietnamese Food Sale: This weekend in the Fischer Center after all Masses. You can carry out or dine in the Fischer Center after each Mass. Please support their efforts to help our parish. Buy some for yourselves, your families or to give to others. Parish Picnic & Open House: Everyone is invited to our annual parish picnic and open house of the new priest’s residence on the weekend of July 13 & 14. Open house on Saturday after 4pm Mass until 6:30pm and on Sunday after 8am Mass until 1:30pm. Coffee and donuts will be served after 8am Mass. The 11am Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Carl Kemme, followed by his blessing of the new house and lunch with us. The parish will provide steak and smoked chicken with baked potatoes on both days, you are welcome to bring your food to share with everyone. As a church family, we give thanks to God for those who practiced stewardship of their time, talent and treasure to our church and school. We give special thanks to those who went beyond their normal stewardship of treasure in tithing and gave extra to our building fund. We are blessed with over $180 thousand from your generosity. It’s time to thank God at our Holy Masses and to celebrate great food and fellowship. Sympathy: Our love and prayers go out to the family of Frances Brent. She was 97 and passed to eternal life on Saturday, June 15. She was a long-time and faithful parishioner of our parish. We thank God for her love and faith shared with us. We also thank her and her family for her memorial to All Saints Catholic Church. May she rest in peace with our Lord and with all the angels and saints. All Saints, pray for us—Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Happy Father’s Day to all dads. May God bless you, dads, this day and all the days of your life with heavenly blessings, with greater love and respect from your children and grand-children, and with holiness to lead your family to eternal life like St. Joseph did with his family. St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 5:25-37 had this message to all dads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Today, let us pray for all dads so that they may be like St. Joseph to their spouse, children, families and friends. May they know how important they are to their families and to us all. Dads are like the roofs of our houses; no house is complete without the roof. They are our protectors and bread providers. They are our role models in words and in deeds. Let us love them always. Happy Father’s Day to all dads! Vietnamese Food Sales: Our Vietnamese parishioners will hold their summer food sales, carry out and dine in the Fischer Center after each Mass, next weekend, Friday June 21 to Sunday June 23. Please support their efforts to help our parish. Buy some for yourselves, your families or to give to others. Everyone needs food, we must eat to live but we don’t live to eat :) Please see the next page for menu items & prices. Parish Picnic & Open House: Everyone is invited to our annual parish picnic and open house of the new priest’s residence on the weekend of July13 & 14. Open house on Saturday, July 13th after 4pm Mass until 6:30pm. On Sunday, July 14th open house will be after 8am Mass until 1:30pm. Coffee and donuts will be served after 8am Mass. The 11am Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Carl Kemme, followed by his blessing of the new house and lunch with us. Everyone is invited to join us both days. The parish will provide the main dish, steaks and smoked chicken with baked potatoes, you are welcome to bring your food to share with everyone. Come hungry and be well-fed with tasty food. As a church family, we give thanks to God for those who practiced stewardship of their time, talents and treasures to our church and school. We give special thanks to those who went beyond their normal stewardship of treasure in tithing and gave extra to our building fund. We are blessed with over $180 thousand from your generosity. It’s time to thank God at our Holy Masses and to celebrate great food and fellowship. Love, Fr. Hien My Dear Parishioners,
Glory and praise to God our heavenly Father who blessed us with each other. May we love God with all our hearts and always love each other. Each day we are to give thanks to God for our lives and one another. The joy of having a newly ordained priest from our parish, Fr. Matt Seigman, is still going in my heart. I love it and I am sure you do too. Please know that I have told Fr. Seigman that he is always welcome to celebrate Holy Sacraments in our parish and we would love to have him any day and any time. He will be serving at Blessed Sacrament parish. God bless him and his ministry there. You can always remind him that there’s “no place like home at All Saints.” Father will be at All Saints to celebrate Holy Masses for us on Sunday June 16th at 9:30am and 11am. God has blessed our parish with many vocations to the priesthood and religious life. God is good, and so let us continue praying for all priests and more vocations to the priesthood and religious life to serve God and for the salvation of our souls. Our diocese has been blessed with many religious vocations of both men and women. Thanks be to God! On Monday, June 3rd, I attended the annual seminarian golf and dinner with our bishop, priests, sisters and many Metro Serrans. I always look forward to it every year for they have good steaks with great support for our seminarians. I got to sit with three seminarians at my dinner table. They learned that I have attended this event for nine years straight as a seminarian and almost every year as a priest. Unfortunately, I learned that our seminarian Matthew Nguyen had decided to take a break from the formation. BTW, Matthew and I are not related. Nguyen is like Smith in America, the most common last name for Vietnamese people. I hope that Matthew will return to the formation program. Parish Office Hours: Please notice that during summer months, the parish office is open only from 9am to 3pm every day. Usually only one or two staff is working per day. Summer Activities: Vietnamese parishioners will hold their summer food sales as fund raising for our parish on June 21-23; Parish picnic and open house of the new priest’s residence on the weekend of July 13 & 14. Everyone is invited to our July 13th Saturday 4pm Mass, followed by an open house of the priest’s residence until 6:30pm. On Sunday, July 14th open house will be after 8am Mass until 1:30pm. Coffee and donuts will be served after 8am Mass. The 11am Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Carl Kemme, followed by his blessing of the new house and lunch with us. Everyone is invited to join us both days. The parish will provide the main dish (we’ll have to butcher a fattened calf), you are welcome to bring your favorite food to share with everyone. Love you all, Fr. Hien P.S. Father’s Day will be Sunday, June 16th, with special blessings upon all dads during Mass. Building Fund: From everyone in our church family, we want to thank the many individuals and families, parishioners and non-parishioners, who have contributed generously to our building fund. Up to date, we are blessed with $180,011.00. My Dear Parishioners,
June is here and the summer season has started. Our children are out of school to be with their families and friends and to enjoy their summer activities. Although school is out, our faith and love for God will never go out. Please always keep your family close to God by attending Holy Masses wherever you are this summer. For Mass times near your traveling area, visit Masstimes.org. Congratulations: Again, let us give thanks to God and congratulate Fr. Seigman on his ordination to the priesthood. If you are around, please join us for his Holy Mass at All Saints on Sunday, June 2nd at 8am. This means that I will get to sleep in on Sunday morning, just kidding. Father will hear confessions prior to his Mass. Thank You: To so many parishioners who helped Fr. Seigman celebrate his first Holy Mass—beautifully--and our reception for him last Sunday. There were so many people, especially priests and seminarians. I had so much fun. We had plenty of food for everyone. A special thanks to all those who helped with the meal, what you did tells what kind of love and service we have here at All Saints. We love each other and we also love to celebrate with each other. Thank you for your ministry! Upcoming Events: Summer school will start this Monday, June 3rd to July 26th; Summer Vacation Bible school will start July 8th to 12th; Vietnamese parishioners will hold their summer food sales as fund raising for our parish on June 21-23; Parish picnic and open house of the new priest’s residence on the weekend of July 13 & 14. Everyone is invited to our July 13th Saturday 4pm Mass, followed by an open house of the priest’s residence until 6:30pm. On Sunday, July 14th open house will be after 8am Mass until 1:30pm. Coffee and donuts will be served after 8am Mass. The 11am Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Carl Kemme, followed by his blessing of the new house and lunch with us. Everyone is invited to join us both days. The parish will provide the main dish (we’ll have to butcher a fattened calf), you are welcome to bring your favorite food to share with everyone. Love you all, Fr. Hien--PS. Whoever has been praying for rain, please STOP. Just kidding (: Building Fund: From everyone in our church family, we want to thank the many individuals and families, parishioners and non-parishioners, who have contributed generously to our building fund. Up to date, we are blessed with $179,111. My Dear Parishioners,
How are you doing? I am doing great and still going for I survived Holy Week, the Easter celebrations, our children’s Confirmation and their First Confession and First Holy Communion. I survived our end-of-the-school-year activities and graduations of our children and my niece. God is great for He has kept me safe and healthy with the energy I needed to lead our parish and to celebrate His Holy Sacraments with love and devotion. I love our Catholic Faith! Thanks be to God who made me and blessed me with 19 years as a priest this Memorial Day, Monday, May 27. God knows that I don’t deserve to be a priest nor to be a pastor. He has graced me much for He has loved me much. All I want now is to continue loving Him and serving Him. This weekend, I am looking forward to celebrating the transitional deacons’ ordination and Father Matt Siegman’s ordination to the priesthood at Cathedral. Please join me and many guest priests at 3pm this Sunday in our church for Fr. Siegman’s first Holy Mass and reception following Mass. Does anyone know how old is Fr. Siegman? He is 33. Finally, please join me in thanking God for all our children who have succeeded in their academic year and above all, to our beloved Fr. Siegman for becoming a priest. May God watch over them all to keep them safe throughout this summer. Please also thank our teachers and parish staff who helped our children in their formation and education. We are blessed to have them with us. We love them all and congratulations to Father Seigman. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us, Fr. Hien Building Fund: From everyone in our church family, we want to thank the many individuals and families, parishioners and non-parishioners, who have contributed generously to our building fund. Up to date, we are blessed with $178,511. |
AuthorFather Hien Nguyen Categories |
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Parish Office: M-F 9am - 3pm
School Office: M-F 8am - 4pm |