Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Folks,

Mass intentions for 2026! Very important announcement:

The book for Mass intentions will be opened on Tuesday, November 18th when the office opens at 8:30am. This is a slight change from the usual date, partly because the Faith Direct confusion has generated copious work for staff, but also because Mondays are crazy busy at the front desk, and Tuesdays seem much more opportune.

Therefore, exercising my full authority as pastor, I solemnly declare that henceforth and every year, the Mass Intention Book will be opened on a Tuesday in November and that I reserve the right for staff and myself to pick and announce the date that is opportune.

Let it be thus, I have spoken, and the law is promulgated! Woohoo! Wow, that was fun to use my full authority! Ok, yes that is written with a wink and a smile, but nonetheless it may have helped you to pay attention.

Catie Espiritu, our Assistant Youth Minister has been blessed with a second child who is due to burst forth into the world in January! Catie has discerned that the Lord is calling her to full-time motherhood and will thus be stepping down from her position on parish staff. We wish her well, with health and holiness for her children and marriage! We will miss her greatly, but are comforted by the fact that she most certainly remain at St. Mary’s and volunteer as she is able. We will begin to search for someone to fill this staff position shortly.

All Saints Day on Saturday! The great feast of All Saints falls on Saturday this year. Because of that, the obligation to attend Mass under pain of sin has been lifted. But the day itself is not less holy, since the holiness comes from God, not from the obligatory celebration. Since so many Catholics are duty focused, I am aware that fewer will attend Mass. To facilitate those who still wish to pray Holy Mass in honor of their friends and relatives in heaven, the schedule for the feast day is included:

Oct 31: 6pm Latin

Nov 1: 7:30am, 9am, 10:30am

pax,

Father John Mosimann

The book to request Mass intentions for calendar year 2026 will open on November 18.

Dear Folks,

Is your car a mess? Or your office? Or your inbox?

My car is actually pretty clean inside, while the outside is a little dirty. But I know lots of folks struggle with keeping a car interior clean, especially if they have children! I remember years ago my nephew being very concerned because he got chocolate all over the seats in my car. I laughed and said, “that is the price of being an uncle. Sometimes the chocolate is all over.”

But my office? That is another story! Yikes, stacks of paper, all representing work or marriage prep or annulments or meeting requests or sales pitches and on and on and on.

And email inboxes? How many people just give up on trying to empty them out. My dad once asked for help clearing out the 27,000 emails out of his inbox. We just made him a new gmail account instead.

Ok… but what possible ‘Jesus connection’ am I thinking?

When you clean out your car/office/inbox, you suddenly become much more aware of previously unnoticed threats to re-cluttering your life. A candy wrapper in the car, an unreturned message on the desk, or email spam coming in.

The same thing can happen with our souls, especially if we haven’t been to confession in ages. It is such an amazing experience as a priest to help people to clear out their souls of the debris and clutter of sin. Truly, as a priest, I rank it a privilege second only to transubstantiating bread and wine into Jesus.

Once we clear out the debris that was intimidating us from returning to Jesus, we become much more sensitive to maintaining the spiritual health and cleanliness of our souls. I often tell folks who return from many years away from the sacrament, “don’t be surprised if you start to remember and recall smaller sins. Just bring themconfidently to your next confession. Jesus will always welcome you home.”

pax,

Father John Mosimann

Dear Folks,

There has been a bit of confusion over electronic giving.

Here is what happened, our third-party vendor for electronic giving is Faith Direct. Faith Direct migrated its online service to ParishSoft Giving on September 25th. As I understand it, essentially they sub-contracted a portion of their service, which is not unusual for contractors or businesses.

Yes, it was marketed as an upgrade, but not all of you have experienced the transition as such. Here are a few changes:

— Donors will now be receiving email notices from ParishSoft Giving regarding their donations to the parish, before this was something you had to opt into, but it has been turned on by default. Some folks thought these emails were a scam, but they are not. (However, always be careful to never click on links!)

— Donors who give Weekly Offertory as opposed to Monthly Offertory will now have their weekly donation drawn from their account every week. Pray for our bookkeeper, as this means many more entries for our bookkeeping software as folks choose different days!

— Donors now need to use the the link below to check their accounts and make any changes to their information. (Didn’t I just tell you never click on links? Ooops). And at least one parishioner couldn’t get this link to work. (Maybe because of formatting in the bulletin, it may have removed part of the link)? Here is the link on it’s own line.

— Sorry this has not been a smooth transition. You can contact ParishSoft Donor Support at donorsupport@parishsoft.com or 866-507-8757.

I’ll say a Hail Mary for you in gratitude for your generous support of St. Mary’s!

pax,

Father John Mosimann

P.S. Another reminder to all parishioners, there is a nationwide scam going on that targets parishioners and uses their pastor, in our case, me and sends fake emails, texts etc. asking for you to “do me a favor” which includes buying gifts cards and such. I WILL NEVER ASK A PARISHIONER TO PURCHASE A GIFT CARD OR SEND ME MONEY! Please delete emails and text that come asking – note the email address sending you the request is similar to mine but not correct. If you are ever unsure, please call the office for clarification. Be vigiliant.