I’m grateful for everyone who has been working together to help us not just go through this season of transition, but even to make progress on helping people meet Jesus and grow as his disciples. Our leadership teams — a special shout-out to the Transition Team, the School Board, and the Finance Council — and our parish staff have been a huge support for me. Most of all, I’m grateful to all our parishioners who have volunteered and worshiped with us at Mass from good hearts. Your service and presence means all the more to me because I know that for some of you, the transition still hurts.

This week I hope you’ll help us by asking more questions. Thank you to everyone who asked us good, hard questions right after the May 28 announcements. You helped us think through many important topics. Below are answers to some questions that people have asked recently.

Who is leading music at Mass? Are they volunteers or do we pay them?

For special days, like the Assumption of Mary and Labor Day, we have our Seasonal Choir led by Gary Stoff. They are all volunteers, and I am so grateful for the way Gary and our choir help us worship on feast days and holidays. If you enjoy singing, join them! You can talk to Gary Stoff directly, or Debbie Gartner, our Ministry Manager, can help you connect to the Seasonal Choir.

For our 10 a.m. Mass on Sunday, Greg Hulub, our interim Worship Leader, helps lead our music. We pay him a weekly stipend for his help, and he’s ably assisted by a small worship ensemble of volunteers. Once October comes and we are settling into our long-term plan where 10 a.m. Mass is at IHM, we’ll look to bring new volunteer ministers into the 10 a.m. ensemble.

For our 4 p.m. Mass on Saturday, Ben Allen and Theresa Flores have been coming to help us. For me, they’ve been life-savers, and I’m very grateful to them. We pay them a stipend for the weekends where they help. In the future, I’m hopeful that one of them will be a good fit to help us at the 4 p.m. Mass every week. At that point, we may look at starting a worship ensemble for the 4 p.m. Mass.

For our 7 a.m. Mass, eventually I’d like to have volunteer cantors help us sing the mass parts and maybe a closing song. At the moment, we are planning to keep the 7 a.m. Mass mostly a “quiet” Mass with just a little singing.

Long-term, I hope to have a paid staff member focused on music ministry for Sunday Mass. But the process to get clarity on the role and hire might take us a year or two.

Does SSP parish have a Pastoral Associate?

No. Budget limits meant that we could not have a staff member dedicated to the Pastoral Associate role. We’ve asked several staff members to cover some of the duties formerly performed by the Pastoral Associate, and wonderful volunteers have taken up some of the other duties. If you need support with something that used to be the role of the Pastoral Associate, contact Bridget Judge, our Administrative Assistant, and she’ll help you connect to someone who can help you.

Can we make a new parish photo directory?

Parish photo directories help a lot, and also take a lot of work to organize! I can see how a parish photo directory could be a good resource for our community, but I don’t think it is likely to happen before Christmas.