October 30, 2022 - Pastor Message
04/26/2024“As we adore you, O God, who alone are holy and wonderful in all your Saints, we implore your grace, so that, coming to perfect holiness in the fullness of your love, we may pass from this pilgrim table to the banquet of our heavenly homeland.”
The above words are taken from the Prayer After Communion for Mass on the feast of All Saints, which we celebrate this week. I think it is more than a little providential that we also have our fall festival coming up. Just as we celebrate God’s grace at work in the lives of all of the Saints in glory at the table of the Lord, so at our festival we celebrate God’s grace so abundantly at work in the lives of all of the “saints” in our parish at the best parish dinner in town.
That isn’t to say that we here at St. Boniface are Saints in the fullest sense of the word, though I have no doubt that many of our parishioners who have gone before us in faith are, and I hope and trust that they are praying for us. A Saint properly speaking is someone who is with God in glory, whether they’ve been formally recognized as such by the Church through the process of canonization or not.
But the hallmark of the Saints this side of eternity is that they live their lives for God and neighbor, and isn’t that exactly what brings so many of our parishioners out to help with our fall festival? What motivates so many people to give up their Sunday afternoon, during football season no less, to do such volunteer work as selling tickets or working booths, preparing food in a sweltering kitchen or serving that food to hundreds of people, crunching numbers and sorting cash in the bank room or taking out trash and keeping restrooms clean, or any of the dozen or more other tasks that are needed for the festival to happen? And that doesn’t even include the many parishioners and others who put in countless hours the days, weeks, and months before the festival starts. What motivates them is the desire to serve God by helping to support our parish and its various ministries and to serve our neighbors by welcoming them to our parish to share food and fellowship with us and to see what a faithful and joyful community we are.
Our fall festival is about so much more than pork and sauerkraut (though our pork and sauerkraut are pretty awesome!). It is about so much more than raising funds for our parish. It is about serving God and serving neighbor on the road to sainthood, and having a blast while doing so. So to all of the “saints” (with a little “s”) who make our festival possible, I say thank you, and may God’s grace in your life grow through your service next weekend and beyond until that little “s” becomes a big one.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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