He is Risen !!!
May the Risen Lord illumen our hearts so that we may come to know the power of his love and be filled with peace and with hope. Weso?ego Alleluja!, Buona Pasqua, ¡Felices Pascuas!, Maligayang pasko ng pagkabuhay (bet you don’t recognize that one), Happy Easter!
 
Happy you are here.
If you think parking is bad on a regular Sunday, on Christmas and Easter it is absolutely crazy! The main reason for our holiday parking mania is simply this, while some people choose not to attend Mass every week, they simply cannot bring themselves to stop coming to Church completely. Many only come to church on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and Easter. If you are one of those people we welcome you back and we want you to know that you are important to us.If you’ve been thinking about coming back to a more regular practice of your faith but just have not gotten around to it or don’t know how to do it, please know that the friars here at St. Paul are willing to help. Don’t hesitate to give us a call and we’re glad you are here today.
 
Religious Education
As our Religious Education program comes to an end, I want to take this time to thank all of our catechists and volunteers who make this very important ministry of our parish possible. As many of you know, this year we instituted a pre-test and post-test for all of our religious education classes to help us gauge how we are doing.  These tests are based on the curriculum in the books and the National Catechetical Directory put out by the National Catholic Conference of Bishops. The religious education and faith formation of our young people is of paramount importance, and these tests will give us a chance to examine our outcomes and continually improve our program. Once again, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participates in our Religious Education Program, which is one of the largest in the State of Connecticut. May God bless you for your efforts on behalf of his children.
 
Internet Safety
Recently, when we replaced our main computer (server) which crashed over the summer, we also installed an improved firewall  and  internet filtering on EVERY ONE of the computers on our property. While we all know  there is a lot of good on the internet, we also know there are a lot of bad things only a click away. I hope that this new equipment will keep us and our children safe from all of the bad things and allow us to benefit from the good things more safely and securely. If you have a meeting in the Church Hall and would like internet access, please know that there is now a network jack in the front of the room next to the trophy case.  In the Parish Center there is wireless internet available the password is ace1111111.  
 
Cassocks and Surplices ?
You may notice that some of our servers are dressed in Cassocks (black robes and white surplices.) They look like the Altar Servers of days gone by. These are our new Masters of Ceremony or lead Altar Servers. They have been specifically chosen by a committee because of their dedication to their responsibilities as Altar Servers. They will be responsible for new Altar Server training, organizing their teams and making sure that every server knows what they are doing before Mass begins. They will also be organizing events and programs for our servers. We are so excited, because over 30 young people have signed up to be new altar servers. Do you ever get tired of me saying how blessed we are with young people? We are so very blessed indeed.
 
Flooded with excited, enthusiastic egg hunters.
Our incredible Family Life Committee organized our first annual Easter Egg Hunt for the children of our parish and we were flooded with excited participants. This committee also organized our Parents’ Night Out Program, our Weekly Play date, which is very well attended, and our Christmas wrap party. I am so grateful for their excellent work. We’ll keep you posted on future events. Thank you FLC we really appreciate all that you do for our parish.
 
The School Auction
Last week’s School Auction was an incredible success. A record number of people attended, and while we don’t have the final total for you, I assure you that we did really well. This auction is a lot of work, but the proceeds are very important for our school. I want to thank Diane Funk, Heidi Calderone, Rich Smith, Idalmi Ramsey, Annalee McGuire, Kimberley Linstruth-Beckom, Amy Kurnik and Marilena Miano  for their hard work in making this important event a reality.
God Bless,
Fr. Robert