Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, As the school year began, our religious education, OCIA, faith formations also began, and we are all encouraged to learn more about our faith. Yet, no matter how much we learn, even the theologians and Scripture scholars still find much mystery in our lives of faith. The first reading this weekend hints at this mystery, especially surrounding death, and the mystery of eternal life for which we hope. God promises that the veil and the web that masks such mysteries will be revealed. Then we shall know. A life of faith is a life of trust, always a mystery to be unpacked, and yet also something for which we hope to be revealed to us, if not in this life, then in eternity. In a few weeks we will begin the month of November, the solemn Feast of All Saints, and the Commemoration of All Souls. Throughout November we remember our loved ones who have died, and we pray for them, indeed all the dead who have gone before us. We pray the saint’s intercessions; we pray for the souls in purgatory. At each of our parish churches we will have a Book of the Dead. It will be a list of all the names of those whom we have buried from Our Lady of the Lakes Parish in the past year. There will be blank pages also for those who wish to enter names of loved ones from other communities, other parishes, or places beyond ours. A candle will be lit at each Mass near this Book to encourage us in prayer and hope for them and for all of us to find our way to eternal life and to reveal the mysteries that we seek. In addition, during November, we will be clearing out our narthexes(entrances) of the various pamphlets, prayer cards, brochures, and advertisements. While some of these might be helpful to some, or a few, they can also distract us from the beauty that we should find in our churches. They can further hide the mysteries that we seek to discover when we enter sacred spaces. We have a parish bulletin that we encourage everyone to take home with them and read, or at least scan, for all that is offered in our parish. Some required items will remain in the narthex such as those items for safety and safe environment, and prayers for our seminarians studying for priesthood, and the monthly Word Among Us for personal devotions. Worship aides for children will also still be available, including a new children’s bulletin with puzzles and crayons for their edification. For those needing to get information to the parish, please continue to contact the parish office well in advance for timely information in our parish bulletin. Please call the office and ask for permission before placing anything in our narthexes/entrances. I am also appealing now for more adults to step up to help at Masses. The Parish needs more ushers and sacristans. Ushers help with the weekend collection and can also be a friendly face to greet people. Women can be ushers and greeters. Joe Smagala is no longer serving in our parish in liturgical roles. The parish thanks him for his past service. Some of what he did is normally done by volunteers in every parish. The parish is seeking new volunteers to learn more about helping to set up for weekday and weekend Masses as sacristans. Anyone willing will be coached through this. Tom Jenkins will remain as a sacristan and parish employee, and we also thank him for his many years of service. He will help to train new sacristans with me. There are also many other ways to volunteer in our parish, and I am grateful for all those who do so. We need to ensure that all volunteers follow the safe environment protocols required to ensure that all children are safe in our parish at all events. Thank you for your understanding and for your patient faith in the mysteries that we continue to seek God’s revelation. In Christ’s love, Father Kevin
September 20, 2026 -- Regarding Finances and rectory changes
Dear parishioners, One thing I will promise this parish, as long as I am here, is to always report the financial situation of the parish. I’m still learning some of it, but I can tell already that the state of things is not dire, but it’s also not great. Over a year ago, the Diocese started requiring parishes to report the financial information quarterly, so you’ve already been seeing it for the past year and a half. The income to expenses has not kept up without some one-time grants and bequests. The bulletin shows the regular budgeted income and what we are collecting each week so everyone can see it clearly. We’re behind this year already since July 1. I’m trying to keep the monthly expenses low while paying our staff appropriately and keeping the lights on. The parish has some financial reserves, $363,146 as reported at the end of the fiscal year ending in June, 2026. That’s a lot of money for most of us, but not a lot for major building repairs or other improvements when needed. As I shared at all Masses last weekend, I committed the parish to making some rectory modifications at a significant expense. This was not something I wanted to do, especially not in my first two months in the parish, but there is an urgency. The reasons for the changes are as I stated: (1) to make some health improvements to the rectory to make it livable, and (2) to reconfigure the rectory to accommodate two priests (Father Cain). Since both those issues are rather urgent, I expedited the process. The Diocese sent the Chief Facilities Officer to review the changes. He encouraged an expedited process as well. The Facilities Officer and the parish Finance Council reviewed the proposal from Law Construction for a total of $162,450. Fortunately, the parish has reserves to pay for it, but the cost of the changes is 47% of our savings. I considered various alternatives, even living at a neighbor parish rectory, but that wouldn’t accommodate Father Cain. I think the parish should support him, and wants to support him, not only for what he can do for the parish in the future, but for the past support he has given to our parish. And there’s a value to having the assigned priest living in the parish boundaries and near the churches. These modifications at this expense accommodate both of those goals. The parish was already slated to begin the Diocesan “Bridge” program in February, 2027 which will involve building up the financial reserves of the parish. Thank you for your understanding of these matters. If you have any questions, please contact the parish office. In Christ’s love, Father Kevin
September 6, 2026
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, This week, a shorter message from me to make room for some other appreciations. The readings this weekend are again a little darker like last weekend. In general, that typically happens as we move toward the end of the Church year in late November. It’s the last line of the Gospel we hear that is relevant to the appreciations shared in this weekend’s bulletin. Jesus said to his disciples, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." We have the results of the Fish Fry reported. I wasn’t there but wanted to make sure it got reported since it did happen, albeit before my time here. Thanks to all those who volunteered and all those who came to support the Fish Fry. I did get to experience my first Parish fundraiser last weekend with the Car Cruise. I met some very nice people, and I had an excellent hot sausage. I’m not really a car guy, so I don’t know all the car “geek” stuff, but it was interesting to see all the unusual and antique cars. It was inspiring to see parish volunteers working together and all those who came out to support the event. Thanks to all of you who were part of the annual Car Cruise, and congratulations, I’m told that the profit this year was the largest ever! Nevertheless, the closing words this weekend from Jesus are relevant to all of us. First, it’s important that even for a fundraiser or social event, when it’s in the name of the Parish, we can appreciate all those who gather in the name of Jesus. We are reminded that Jesus is present with us in those events, not just Mass. That means we can appreciate one another as Jesus loves and appreciates us. We can easily get distracted at the petty faults we see in others and get annoyed. Jesus has some words about how to handle some of that too this weekend. But we should always strive to find the good in each other and work together in His kingdom in our corner of the world. I was happy to see that happening last weekend and expect to see it happening again throughout the year. Thanks to all those who volunteered, all those who supported our events, and all those who found Jesus in the midst. In Christ’s love, Father Kevin
August 30, 2026
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t remember many of my middle school/junior high school teachers at all. But I remember the teacher I liked the least, who was probably the best of the bunch. Mr. King was the band director. He was mean and I don’t think anyone in my class liked him. It didn’t help that he had the same name as Stephen King who wrote scary novels. He didn’t seem to care how well we played our instruments. The only thing he did was direct the band and yell at us if we weren’t looking at him. It was a tough lesson to learn to look at someone else while reading music. He would call out our name and scold us in the middle of the band lesson if we weren’t watching him enough. It didn’t matter if we hit the right notes or not or sounded good or awful. He only wanted us to “look up.” He would shout those two words, “look up” while we were playing frequently. He would frequently stop the song we were playing and yell at one of us who weren’t “looking up” “You’re not playing a solo, Kevin,” he would yell. It seemed so mean to call us out. Even in our small lesson groups of two or three students, he would do this. Again, it mattered less that we played the instrument well, but that we played while looking up. I didn’t really appreciate that teaching method in the junior high band, nor did my classmates. But when we got to high school, it all started to make sense. By high school, we’d mastered the basics of playing our instrument, but we’d also learned, thanks to Mr. King, how to watch the director and play TOGETHER, because we were looking up. Our high school band won many awards because we played well, and we played together and made great music. Last week, we heard how Peter was praised by Jesus and given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. This weekend, it’s almost the opposite as Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan.” I think we can all call to mind times as children when our parents praised us and when they scolded us, maybe even in the same day. In those moments, we might have been confused, but as we reflect, we realize that it was all done in love. It’s hard to accept correction sometimes. Yet, when we realize it’s meant to help us in the grand plan, it takes the sting away. When God challenges us, it might seem confusing, frustrating, or unhelpful in the moment. Experience tells us to lean on the virtue of patience when getting corrected or challenged. As the stronger feelings fade, we might realize that it’s better for us in the long run. The people who really love us and care about our welfare will tell us when they think something is not right with us. We know God loves us. When we pray, how do we reflect receiving that love when it’s more challenging and difficult and how can we become more patient in our lives of prayer? Let's continue to LOOK UP in challenging moments and spiritually work TOGETHER! In Christ’s love, Father Kevin
August 23, 2026
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, In the Gospel this weekend, Peter is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. He’s put in charge, and Catholic scripture scholars have always interpreted this to mean that the Holy Father, the Pope, oversees the Church on earth. It’s also the authority that Christ has given to bishops and priests to “bind and loose sins,” in the sacrament of Confession. We hear this authority even in the Old Testament reading this weekend as Eliakim is put in charge of the House of David the King symbolized with a robe, a sash, and a key, too. God has used humans throughout salvation history to carry out spiritual authority in the world. In the life of the Church, it’s what clergy have been called and trained to do, and so they need our prayers, especially our bishops. On a much smaller scale, I was given the keys to the parish last month and now have the responsibility for the temporal and spiritual matters of Our Lady of the Lake Parish. One of the things I noticed right away was a need to change the way the parish takes up the collection every weekend. It already happened and so, most of you saw this last weekend. The collection was taken up and then taken directly to the church safe and not brought up to the altar. There is a need for security of the monetary gifts that are given to the parish, and it is diocesan procedure to take the collection directly to a secure location and not be left in the church. Furthermore, it’s not liturgically appropriate to include monetary gifts with the gifts of bread and wine that are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s true that our monetary contributions are gifts we give to God’s Church, but they’re not part of what is spiritually happening at Mass with the Word of God and the Eucharist as our main focus. Going forward, the gifts of bread and wine will come up to the altar BEFORE or AS the collection begins, not AFTER. The ushers will then consolidate the collection from baskets into a security bag and then taken directly to the church safe. Also, as a convenience to our ushers, we will only take up one collection when there is a second envelope as there is this weekend. The money counters will then separate them as they complete the counting. Regarding the collection, you will notice the weekly collection amounts are posted in the bulletin and laid out a little easier to read and see how the parish is doing with its collection as compared to the budget, along with the Parish Appeal amount. Please continue to give as you are able and perhaps increase your donations, if possible, when the collection is not keeping up with the budget, so the parish can pay its bills and salaries for the parish staff. Thank you for your generosity and contributions that keep the parish functional. Another change I tried last weekend and shared during my homily. Having the Memorare prayed as a conclusion to the General Intercessions/Petitions makes more liturgical sense as we offer our prayers to God and with Our Lady’s intercession. I will be continuing that for several weeks at least. We will continue to pray the St. Michael Prayer after the final blessing and before the recessional song. Thank you for adapting to these changes and thank you for your prayers. In Christ’s love, Father Kevin
August 16, 2026
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Happy feast of Our Lady of the Lakes Parish! This weekend we celebrate Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven. I wrote about this liturgical situation for our parish two weeks ago for those who missed it and want to go back and look it up online. It’s an emotional complexity how we as humans can experience sometimes opposing feelings at the same time. As Our Lady watched her son’s death and crucifixion, she was understandably sad and disheartened, but she was also her son’s first disciple, so she probably felt some sense of completion of his mission and therefore some hope too. While Our Lady didn’t experience death in the same way the rest of humanity does, I’m sure there was sadness at her departure, but also a sense of joy in her assumption into heaven. It took several centuries for the Church to formally declare her Assumption as a doctrine of faith, but there is early evidence that her Assumption was assumed by many (pardon the double use of that word). I’m happy to be part of Our Lady of the Lakes especially this weekend, but I’m sad at the same time, as I reflect on one of our beloved Pittsburgh priests who passed away last year. Father James Chepponis was not only a good priest, but he was a master musician, composer and director of our diocesan music office and diocesan choir for many years. He wrote many of the songs and Mass parts we sing regularly, not only in our diocese, but throughout the English-speaking world. I remember calling him before I was ordained and asking if I could use his “Jubilation Mass” music and settings for my first Mass as a priest, with his permission, since the parish did not have that music in its library. He was not only happy to let the parish use his music for free; he said he was honored that I wanted it for my first priestly Mass. Most parishes know his Jubilation Mass well as it’s sung in many parishes and at Diocesan liturgical events because it is adaptable to both traditional and contemporary music for Mass. Another memorable song that he composed was the music setting for the Magnificat, the great story of Mary’s fiat, her yes to God’s will for her when she was told she would give birth to the Messiah. Of course, the Blessed Mother wrote the words, or spoke the words to the Archangel Gabriel, but Father Chepponis put those words to beautiful music. Most of us know the refrain, if not also the words of that tune, “Proclaim the greatness of God; rejoice in God my savior; rejoice in God my savior.” I can hear the music as I typed those words. And they’re not just words to a song. They’re part of Mary’s prayer proclaiming God’s greatness, as she was told of the marvelous, yet ominous words that the angel spoke to her. She would receive a child in her womb, before living with her husband. There would be rumors and gossip at the beginning, hardship in her pregnancy as she traveled much of the known world with Joseph her husband, and then even more pain as she watched the suffering and death of her son. Yet, somewhat aware of the difficult road ahead, she proclaimed God’s greatness! That’s something for all of us to ponder repeatedly in our prayers because we are often presented with moments that involve a complexity of varied emotions. As we ponder the ominous challenges in each of our lives, and maybe before us still, we can join her in proclaiming God’s greatness. We proclaim God’s greatness not just because God is great, but to remind us that in every suffering attached to her son, we can rejoice that he has won for us victory over suffering of all kinds. Like her we can rejoice as we experience pain, grief, sadness, anxiety, sin, and even death itself. This can comfort us in any sadness that there is always hope in Christ’s victory over sin and death. I remember Father Jim Chepponis this weekend sadly, but I also remember the challenge of our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of the Lakes, and the way she rejoiced in God my savior. Happy Feast Day Our Lady of the Lakes parishioners! In Christ’s love, Father Kevin