A Letter from Reverend Maurice R. Larochelle
    Pastor
    Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish

Everything we have in this parish is due to the blessing of God’s generous nature and the many who respond to His invitation to be generous. Created in His image and likeness, we can’t help but be generous. Indeed, you know how good you feel when you are able to give to a good cause or simply to give a gift to a special person in your life.

Because of your generosity, we are blessed with a very thriving and resourceful parish where the needs of many are met spiritually at the Holy Mass or other liturgical celebrations, physically through ministries like St. Vincent de Paul Society, relationally in our various organizations and educationally through our faith formation programs in CCD and adult education.

I am sure that we would all love to see the vibrancy of our parish not only continue, but to grow well into the future, caring for our children, and our children’s children, and those of us who gracefully age toward our place in heaven. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if the future of our parish could include the use of our resources to adopt a sister parish in a country like Uganda? Therefore, to insure the life and growth of our parish, I have been advised by our Parish Finance Council to propose something new to all of you, our first Annual Pledge Drive.

Every year we have base our budget on what I call “shot-in-the-dark-budgeting.” We consider what we have spent in the past, calculate the previous year’s income, and propose a budget based upon what we hope our income will be. But budgeting according to this formula has left us little allowance for planning and managing our assets as well as looking to future growth.

This year we would like to ask for your help in better planning for our future. Therefore, I am proposing that you consider what you are able to give over the next year and pledge that amount. Your commitment to a pledge will allow us to budget and plan better for the optimum vitality of our parish. A pledge is not so much something that will bind you to another obligation. Rather it is a way to help you budget and plan for your charitable giving while enabling us to plan on how to better serve you based on what you and other parishioners have “pledged” to give.

How do I pledge? As you consider pledging, recall what you generally gave over the course of the past year and what you are able to give this year. I understand that you are giving to any number of charities besides our parish. Indeed, it has been my experience that most people give as much as ten percent of their income to charities at large. Therefore, I ask that you consider giving five percent or half of your charitable contributions to your parish. And please, let me say, that you should not give till it hurts, but give till it feels good. Saint Paul said it well, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor.9:7).

Over the next few weeks you will find pledge cards in the pews. We will be asking you to fill in these cards and return them to the parish office. They will allow you various options for donating your pledge; on line checking, automatic draw from your credit card, debit card or other accounts, the traditional weekly envelope.

I sincerely hope you will prayerfully consider participating in this first annual pledge drive to ensure the continued vibrancy of our parish.

 Fr. Moe