To: Priests, Deacons, Pastoral Leaders, Parishes, Schools, Religious Houses From: Reverend David Cirata Re: Liturgical Celebrations and Public Health Concerns Date: 5 March 2020 - Remain at home when seriously ill. - Priests, deacons, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion--Wash your hands before Mass - Do not hold hands during the Lord's Prayer and do not extend your hand Sign of Peace - The Precious Blood will not be distributed. The whole Christ, Body and Blood, is present in the Host. - Holy water fonts will be emptied and cleaned after each Mass.

A big thank you goes out to all the people that helped remove the kneelers at Saint Mary’s and remove all the fabric and padding, along with giving some kneelers some much needed TLC. With your great contribution of time, resources and energy they are already for Eisenhour Church Furnishings to come in Monday and put new padding and fabric on our historic pews. Thank you all! Many hands make the work light.

MUCHO GRACIAS! Saint Michael Youth cannot say thank you enough for all the support shown to us at our Dia de los Muertos Taco Dinner and Dance last weekend! We will carry you all in our prayers as we make the pilgrimage to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana for the National Catholic Youth Conference November 21-23. OLE!

A big thanks to all who supported “An evening in Roma”. From the patrons who came and joined us, parishioners who donated money, the parents and youth who donated food and so many who worked so hard that evening and many days before that. It would not have been a success without all of you. Grazie! We are BLESSED!

Saint Michael’s 24th annual Chicken BBQ is a wrap! Thank you to everyone who came to share a meal, place a bid on an auction item, buy some raffle tickets, order Saint Michael Christmas cards and purchase the homemade goodies in the Country Store! The drive thru, walk up and dining room were a buzz from 10:30am-1:15pm, selling 750 chicken halves in that time! From the leadership of Sue Kaemming and Deb Kirwen to all the worker bees that are needed to make our parish event a success, THANK YOU for sharing your time, talents and treasures! Take a break and put your feet up...tomorrow we can discuss how to make our 25th Annual Chicken BBQ an even bigger success!! Check out more pictures in the photo gallery at the bottom of this page or clicking a picture to the left.

On Sunday September 15th, Saint Michael parish welcomed Tyler (Sebastian) and Abbigail (Cecelia) Williamson as they received the Sacraments of Comfirmation and First Holy Communion. You may recognize Tyler and Abby’s sponsors and grandparents, former members of Saint Michael, Jim and Sheri Reino, along with their daughter Amy and son-in-law Kevin, parents of our newest members, Tyler and Abby! It was so nice to welcome everyone back to Saint Michael! The picture of Abby and Tyler by our beautiful statue of Our Lady of Grace has a special meaning as their great grandparents, Anthony and Marcella Reino, donated the beautiful statue in 1957.

Saturday, September 14th Mike Dazley, our aspiring Deacon to be, joined his 25 classmates at Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral to be received into the Office of Lectors by Bishop Daniel Thomas, which brings him one step closer to being ordained a Permanent Deacon in two years. Mike was supported by his loving family along with Jerry and Patti Wasserman from our parish.

Y.E.S. PROJECT 2019 was a huge success!  Lots of hard work, sweat, laughing and being the hands and feet of Christ serving and loving on the people who allowed us to come to their homes, trusting we could landscape, paint, reconstruct a porch, replace a window, finished a handicap ramp and much much more! Many new friends were made and a bigger picture of what we as CHURCH, the Body of Christ can do when we all work together to become one!

2019 Century Farm Award Applications Available Catholic Charities is now accepting applications for Century Farm Awards. This award designation honors Catholic families who have maintained a farm or homestead within their family for at least 100 years. Applications should be submitted no later than September 20, 2019 A Mass honoring award recipients will be celebrated by Bishop Daniel E. Thomas at St. Isidore Parish, Marysdale Location, 6324 St. Rt. 15, Defiance, Ohio, at 10 am on Thursday, October 10, 2019. For more info, or to request the registration form contact Melissa Tonti at 419-214- 4898 or [email protected]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! to All adults, young adults, teens and younger students who helped make our MARVELOUS MYSTERY VBS at our Saint Michael Campus a huge success!

Patti Hoffman, pastoral associate for faith formation at St. Michael Parish in Gibsonburg, said Picciuto’s story is worth telling to the world. “I have said his is a story that should be shared like Charles Kuralt’s ‘On the Road.’ It’s amazing all the details he puts into each one,” Hoffman said. Picciuto estimated that he invests roughly 20 minutes for each cross. The Tiffin native has lived the last 67 years in Gibsonburg.

St. Mary Millersville VBS June 17-21 Thank You to all that have held up our Vacation Bible School in prayer; the outpouring of love and time by many of people, and for all that participated this past week. We had a wonderful week of learning more about God and how good He is to us, in all times of life, even when life gets wild. We are grateful for this welcoming community of faith, many of those that come as students and helpers are not our parishioners, but they come for VBS and learn and serve in such a beautiful way, thank you to all.

The Amazing Parish Conference was attended by our staff, Fr. Scott, Rae Lyn Hoepf, Patti Hoffman, Maria Porteous, Nancy Patterson, and Terri Reinhart last week. They started with a retreat at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Norwod, Ohio along with Bishop Thomas and 27 other parishes from our Diocese. To prepare for the conference, they had Mass and Adoration at the retreat center. Their first speaker was Patrick Lencioni. He lead us to learn the skills it will take for us to build a culture of prayer, that the team will build upon, to build healthy teamwork, so our parishes can move into being a more vibrant culture of active discipleship. In a culture of active discipleship, we need to actively engage and invest in the faith lives of others. Chris Stefanick from Real Life Catholic gave some pointers to help stay rooted in joy, because joy comes from being loved perfectly by our Awesome God. 

Called to be Saints! We were blessed with a perfect Spring Saturday morning to celebrate a wonderful Cathedral Confirmation for so many well prepared and prayerful candidates. Click to see more pictures of our Confirmandi from our parishes.

The Lenten Mini Retreat was March 20th with Fr. Herb Weber as the speaker. He spoke about building churches--both as a community and as a building. Fr. Herb is the founder of Saint John XXII Catholic Church in Perrysburg. Thank you to Father Herb for spending the evening with us!

The program, "Into the Breach" will primarily address three questions. - What does it mean to be a Christina man? - How does a Catholic man love? - Why is fatherhood, fully understood, so crucial for every man? Sessions are Saturday's during lent at the Saint Mary parish hall.

We celebrated the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick at our Parishes February 16th and 17th. In the essential rite of the sacrament, a priest or bishop lays his hands on the sick person's head. Then he anoints the sick person on the forehead and palms of the hands with the oil of the sick, a holy oil that has been blessed by a bishop.