With over 100 attendees, we need more than 60 volunteers, and the need this year is great.  Our most important area of concern is having ‘crew leaders’ who will be responsible for small groups of 5-6 students each day of VBS, taking them through the rotation to the different stations, and being available each day from start to finish, that means showing up well in advance of the 9am start and not leaving until after the last child from your group has met up with whoever is picking them up after. 

Parents – this is ideal for high schoolers who need service hours.  If they are already moping around the house, playing too many video games or spending too much time on their devices, ‘voluntell’ them that they will be helping with VBS!  Adult volunteers are also needed and welcome. Please contact ‘Bible School Betsy’ if you can help or need more information: bkoval@queenschurch.com.

The early registration discount of $5 off is good for one more week until July 6. No family will pay for more than three registrations, the other kids in the house attend for free! It really helps us plan if you sign up early, thus the discount, though walk-ins at the door are still accepted. Let’s get those kids enrolled!

There are still 11 tags at church (by the elevator) for items we need donated toward VBS. Boxes are at the doors and at the entrance to the parish office to collect your donations. Please bring back all donations by next weekend so we can get them distributed to their final VBS destinations.

SUNDAY 3PM

THURSDAY 3AM

New Parish Pictorial Directory pick up continues at the parish office. There are still many people who qualify for a free copy who have yet to come and claim theirs.

We have a limited number of books for purchase for those who chose not to be in the directory.  Each copy costs $25 and are available during the week at the parish office. We are open Monday – Friday, 8am to 4:30pm.

Join us next Saturday as we celebrate America’s 250th Birthday at the 8am Mass on July 4th with special prayers for God’s blessing on our nation. Patriotic hymns and prayers will be offered at all the weekend Masses.

A Gallup poll released this past week showed that only 17% of American adults are ‘very proud’ to be citizens of the United States. In the same poll, 11% said they were ‘not at all proud’ to be an American. Sadder still, 40% of those polled believe that America’s best days are behind her.

America 250 calls all of us to a renewed sense of patriotism, and love of God and country. There were only 25,000 Catholics in the heavily Protestant 13 colonies, where despite great discrimination, Catholics served with honor and distinction in the Revolutionary Army, including Colonel John Fitzgerald, George Washington’s private secretary, General Stephen Moylan who commanded Washington’s cavalry, Commodore John Barry who is the ‘Father of the United States Navy’ and Thomas Fitzsimons, a militia commander from Pennsylvania and one of only two Catholics to sign the US Constitution.

These men loved their Catholic faith and their country, seeing the ‘American Experiment’ as a chance for religious freedom and difference of opinion to flourish. The rights they fought for are ours, and we all too often take them for granted. I am not only very proud to be a Catholic in America, I am blessed, and I thank God for the stars and bars of Old Glory that mean I am a free man in the freest country on earth. God Bless America!

I encourage you to spend a few moments reading these inspiring stories of the role the Catholic faith played in the founding of our country 250 years ago and how they have helped sustain her ever since:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching” (Heb 13:8-9).

Fr. Tim MacDonald

Pastor