From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for The Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 August 30)

August 30 - 22nd Sunday OT - Fall Preview

Summer 2026, we hardly knew you. You entered quietly into our midst, stayed not entirely uneventfully, and now comes the time to release you into the swiftly fading past, for time marches on. 

September is the month of getting back together. Though not everyone at St. Mark’s is gone for all of the summer, it seems we are never all here from June-August. Students go home. People travel. Those who can, weekend at the family cabin. The heat-sensitive go to Nativity. Even PES members disappear for weeks at a time. Our average Sunday attendance drops a full one hundred persons June-July, compared to the spring figures. But then, just when the ragweed pollen is raging appallin’, when the days begin to shorten, and the cicada lengthens the end of summer buzzer… the Markers start to reassemble.  

In the next few weeks “everything” will start up again at the parish. Here is a bulletin-point overview of the highlights:

• We return to our regular liturgy this week. 7am Mass (remember that?) Tuesday-Friday resumes Tuesday September 1. Thursday 7pm Holy Hour starts up again as well this week, and usual Sunday confession schedule next weekend. 

• The St. Mark Preschool resumes after Labor Day. I am very proud of the great work Ms. Addie Smith and her stellar staff are doing over in the Star, Sunshine, and Rainbow rooms for the little ones God that sends our way. This year, we carry on after bidding a fond farewell to Mrs. Terry Lewis, who retired at the end of the summer session from her many years of serving at St. Mark’s. May God repay her!

• Our parish year gets underway in earnest with the 3rd annual Parish Picnic on Saturday September 12. Join the whole parish family at Newell Park for what (God willing) will be a bright sunny day filled with kickball, food and drink, kid’s games, bingo, heads or tails, and all your favorite people milling about. 

• Choir will get underway again in September. Could this be the year your voice joins its angelic ranks? Small groups too, will be getting back to their regular rhythms, and the Ignite program will rekindle its calendar of youth activities. 

• Looking ahead to October, I’m very excited for this fall’s Bible Study. In six live sessions (starting Oct 13) I plan to share only the most succulent morsels from the STL thesis I was able to finish this July while ensconced in the Rectory (more or less). The book in question will be the Acts of the Apostles, and we will pay special attention to the theme of apostolic preaching found therein. 

• October is usually the Month of Stewardship. This year, rather than try to meditate on returning the gifts of Time, Talent, and Treasure to God in five jam-packed weeks, we will space out our stewardship initiatives. With regard to stewarding our talents, in place of a ministry fair we will be spotlighting various ministries throughout the year and Small Group recruitment will take place in January. Our focus on prayer (giving God our time) will be throughout the whole month of December (first ever all-parish retreat day!). And October will retain rights to the annual Financial Pledge (tithing our treasure). 

Regarding the year as a whole, if last year we were “Living for the Day of the Lord,” this year the focus turns to assisting our parents as primary educators in the faith. The theme for the year, therefore, which I plan to unpack more fully in the weeks ahead is “A Family at the Feet of Jesus.” Whatever else we are and do, that has to be seen as the Only One Thing Necessary, to borrow the title of Archbishop Hebda’s Pastoral Letter which we will all read this year.

Every fall at St. Mark’s are the new people God sends us every year: new arrivals to the neighborhood, people who have wandered our way, students making it over to the parish for the first time. I ask all those who have been around long enough to be able to distinguish between Fr. Patrick and myself to be generous in approaching the newcomers to introduce yourself and welcome them to the parish. Many people come and go around here; what gets people to stay is when they feel “at home” and find community. 

Finally, one new face you will be seeing on staff this fall is our interim Facilities tech, Dan Prochazka. Dan is our new custodial/maintenance guy, arriving just in time to help keep the Good Ship Mark in ship shape as all hands return on deck. Welcome Dan, and welcome back one and all!

From the Heart of the Shepherd: Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time