Pastor's letter for this week
January 3, 2025
Dear Parishioners of St. Andrew,
I hope you are all doing well and staying strong! New Year’s Day was beautiful in Pasadena! I was at the Rose Parade with the priests and my family, and we greatly enjoyed it. All that walking means I’ve done the entirety of my exercise for 2025. At least I burned off some of the fat I got from all the wonderful sweets people gave me for Christmas!
Getting back to the rectory, however, we all learned more details about the terrorist attack in New Orleans. What a terrible tragedy and a very sad way to start the new year! I’ve been to New Orleans many times and have walked on Bourbon Street exactly where that madman killed all those innocent people. Let us pray for them and their families and for an end to terrorism and fanaticism.
Our Mass on New Year’s Day was amazingly well attended. We had a full church, which surprised me since the traffic was still difficult in Old Town. But we had a lot of visitors especially from Ohio and Oregon since they were in the Rose Bowl. I hope you enjoyed your New Year’s Day as well.
Tomorrow evening, January 4th, we will have a very special celebration: the 25th anniversary of the Nocturnal Adoration Society of the Blessed Sacrament in our parish. It is amazing to me that we founded that Society back in January of 2000. I invite everyone to this special celebration. Our choir will be singing the music of the California Missions. It will be bilingual (but mostly Spanish) and, since it is a vigil Mass, will fulfill the Sunday obligation. After Mass we will have an Eucharistic Procession around the block then return to the church for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Here is the rest of the news from the parish:
SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY – This Sunday we celebrate this beautiful feast of the “Three Kings” in which Our Lord is manifested as the Savior of all mankind. All nations are called to adore the Lord. This feast reminds us of the universality of God’s love for all of us. Next Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, which brings the Christmas season to a close.
THANK YOU! – The Christmas season which we are currently in the middle of celebrating, is always a joy. But it also involves a lot of work by a lot of very dedicated volunteers in our parish. So, thank you to our Musicians, our Altar Decorations team, our Lectors, our Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, our Altar Servers and Knights of the Altar, our Ushers, our Sacristans, and all else who assist regularly in keeping our church beautiful and clean.
During the Christmas season and at New Year’s we had a very large number of visitors from all over the country and even from foreign lands. I can always tell if they’re new or visiting because they are all taking pictures of the church. We get a great many compliments from these visitors, and it is a joy to welcome them to St. Andrew’s.
WELCOME NEW PARISHIONERS! - As we begin this new year, I take the opportunity to welcome all of our new families to St. Andrew's. I continue to be amazed at how many new parishioners we continually welcome. Some come from great distances to worship with us due mostly to the quality of our Liturgies and we are delighted to have them. Welcome to the St. Andrew family!
ONGOING RESTORATION PROJECTS – As we begin the new year, our restorer, Evan Wilson, will soon be back on the campus to continue the restoration work on the vestibule ceiling. The next project after that will be the very tall ceiling in the tower room (gift shop). If you ever look up there you will see four beautiful images of angels with musical instruments. Sadly, over the 97 years of our church’s life, the images have faded and the paint is peeling and they are in great need of restoration. Hopefully, 2025 will be the year for that.
We recently had to replace the backlighting of the 3 clocks in our tower. The lights were slowly burning out so I had our maintenance go up there to replace them but, as luck would have it, they no longer make those light bulbs! So all the fixtures had to be replaced with new LED lights. That took quite some time to do. A simple little “replace the light bulbs” task turned into a big project!
The ”big” pending restoration project is that of replacing our pipe organ upstairs in the choir loft. During the Christmas season we received several substantial gifts which are destined for this project. However, we still have a looooong way to go to fully fund it. If you’d like to know more about it and how you can help, please contact me at FrGonzalez@aol.com
PLAN FOR THE FUTURE! – One of the chief sources of funding for major projects in most parishes comes from bequests which are left to it by faithful parishioners. In every parish I’ve been assigned, almost annually a large financial contribution is received from someone who has remembered the parish in their Last Will and Testament. It is usually not the full amount of the estate (although at times it is) but it is at least a portion. It is also common to name a parish as the beneficiary in a life insurance policy.
These types of bequests are vital to the long-term running of the parish as they are the means by which large construction and maintenance projects are funded. I encourage you to prayerfully consider the possibility of remembering the parish in your Will and/or naming it as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. This is a great way of ensuring that your legacy continues long into the future as the parish serves the many other generations. May God reward you for your generosity.
A couple of years ago, our parish was blessed to be the recipient of two of these bequests and the funds have been deposited in a new Endowment Trust with the Catholic Community Foundation. This is a new way of ensuring your legacy for the future of our parish. For more information, please contact me at FrGonzalez@aol.com
In Christ and St. Andrew,
Father Gonzalez
CHRISTMAS SCHEDULE 2024
HOW TO RECITE THE HOLY ROSARY
PROCEDURE FOR THE RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION