One of the words that is spoken often among the candidates who are seeking to run for President of our country is change.  Change is inevitable, and to be responsible we must recognize it and respond intelligently and reasonably.  At all of the Masses today I am speaking after Communion about the financial situation of our parish and asking all the people of St. Patrick to consider two things: changing by increasing the amount you give in the weekly collection and giving consideration to changing the way you give.  Asking for an increase from everyone is logical.  Just as your expenses at home have increased, so have ours.  The past three months the utility bills alone have been: Church $9,629, school $22,710.  We have more than 100 people on our payroll and each year we show our appreciation and give them a raise that will help them with the rising costs in our society.  This year we have given them a 3% raise.  We have nineteen acres of property, buildings that include a church, school, convent and rectory, a debt from the new church of $785,000, a parking lot that continually needs upkeep as well as the sports facilities and fields.  In order to just keep things the way they are, we need an increase in income.  If everyone would please consider making an increase we will be able to maintain what we have at the present moment.

Each week in the collection our biggest number of cash bills is one dollar bills.  When you stop and think about it, a dollar does not go very far today.  The price of a movie is about ten dollars, going to a fast food restaurant is not cheap, and even a simple snack at a convenience store is far more than a dollar.  Every time the collection basket is brought forward it is overflowing with one dollar bills.  I would ask all who are just putting in dollar bills to please consider putting in ten or five dollars.  That will be a great help to our financial situation.  A few years ago one of my teenage nieces saw me and said, “Uncle Ray, may I have twenty dollars?” The last thing I would ever think of asking for as a teenager was twenty dollars.  But the economy and society are different now.  The power of the dollar has shrunk, so I ask for your generosity.

The other change I ask you to consider is to make your weekly contributions to our parish through automated giving.  We started this with the school this year with the result of the school being in the best shape financially since I have been here.

Those with children in our parish school are given two options to pay tuition.  They can pay up front, and about 100 families did that, getting a 2% discount.  That gave us a good amount to start the year.  The other option is to pay through electronic fund transfer once a month.  This works a lot better than the previous method of mailing a bill and waiting for a check payment.  This is an example of using the technology of the present to help all involved.  As you have seen in our weekly bulletin we have made an agreement with a company called Faith Direct to make this a reality in our parish.  We began in March of last year.  Since that time 131 families have signed up.  The yearly increase in giving from those using Faith Direct (131 families) is projected to be more than $53,000 for a year of giving.  That is a great increase.  I signed up in the beginning.  At first it was an eye opener to see how much a weekly donation is over the course of a year.  But each month it comes out of my credit card account.  You may use your credit card account or a bank account to transfer the funds.  The research from Faith Direct shows that most people do not go to their parish church every single week of the year.  There are vacations, family affairs and many other reasons that take us out of town for certain weekends.  But even when you are away we still have the same bills.  We are always here for you with our personnel and buildings.  That does not change.  When you are prevented from coming to church because of snow we have two factors that lessen our income: the absence of people putting money in the collection and the added expense of clearing the snow.  This weekend the ushers will be handing out brochures about Faith Direct.  There is also information about it in the bulletin.  It has been proven to work here at St. Patrick’s as well as many other parishes in our nation. I thoroughly investigated this concept and the firm we use with the Parish Council and we agreed that it was a great way to help our parish financially.  As you will see in the literature it is very easy to sign up.  I thank you for considering the above thoughts.  I appreciate the time you take to consider an increase in your weekly donation as well as using Faith Direct.  Most of all, thank you for being part of our parish family. 

Father Walden