It has been some time since I have written to you due in part to meeting sacramental work alone and an abundance of other challenges and not a lack of need on our part. In the interim because of your prayers and previous support we have been able to carry on in these months, especially in the debilitating heat our country and world have endured this summer.
My office window in our pastoral/administrative center looks out on the main part of our beautiful campus. I can see the rectory, the church’s bell tower, our former convent, now a guest house and retreat center, and the driveway and parking lots leading to our school. I have noticed a steady stream of visitors to our center for over a month.
One set is families of all ages and all racial and economic groups in desperate need of food assistance. Many receive some form of government food subsidies but find themselves running out of food before the month’s end. Nearly all of them work in some capacity, sisters and brothers we sometimes call the “working poor.” More than a few this summer have had to seek this kind of help for the first time in their lives, and their faces reveal equal amounts of shame and relief. Our marvelous staff attends to them all with such grace and respect, making these sisters and brothers in need know that they bless us even as we are able to bless them.
The other set of visitors has been a cadre of parents of our school children. The voucher program in our state, funded by private businesses and corporations, is meager on funds and can no longer fund tuition for some of our families who can’t afford even our already reduced fees and tuition. Our city and county have made some better investments in public education in recent years, but the system and the children still suffer from decades and, in reality, more than a century of not caring for and investing in the children of the poor and working people. These parents are desperate to keep their children in our safe, academically challenging, faith-nurturing environment. We can’t turn them away. We make scholarship agreements based on the documentation they bring and trust that we will find the monies needed through our efforts and God’s grace.
For almost eighty years, Resurrection Catholic Missions has been here meeting these and other needs as we tended to sick children, indigent elders, school children, the hungry, the unhoused, and all who need to hear the Good News preached and the sacraments celebrated. We didn’t do any of this without God’s grace and the help of partners like you! As we look forward to cooling temperatures and the fall season, I know the needs will change but will remain. May we count on your prayers and gift, great or small again, as we serve those who come to this blessed place daily? I thank you on behalf of all we serve and promise you our heartfelt prayers for your goodness. May the Risen One bless you and all your dear ones.
Gratefully in the Risen Lord,
Father Manuel Williams, C.R.
Mission Director