St Philip Catholic Church

11/05/2022

St. Mary of Guadalupe Mission celebrated All Saints with our Annual Parade of Saints on Oct. 30, 2022. Our children shared some of their favorite Saints with our Parish.

09/04/2022

St. Philip, St. Joseph and St. Mary of Guadalupe Parish Picnic held at St. Mary's on August 28, 2022. Pinatas, Bingo, Face Painting, Cake Walk, Snow Cones, good food, and wonderful company. Fun was had by all.

06/28/2021

Fear of death and mockery of those with hope

06/21/2021

Faith gives us perspective

06/13/2021

Ockham's Razor, Metaphysics, and Reality

Ockham's Razor, Metaphysics, and Reality.

06/06/2021

The ultimate sacrament of the living

The Ultimate Sacrament of the Living.

06/06/2021

Opportunity for Catholic Youth in our backyard!

A Catholic youth conference like no other! Impacting and equiping teens to advance a culture of life.

05/31/2021

Blessed Memorial Day; eternal rest to those who have defended us.

05/31/2021

Is everything that is true and good an beautiful and just must be compatible with the nature of God.

05/24/2021

A Dynamic and Surprising Spirit of Unity and Harmony, but not of chaos

A Dynamic and Surprising Spirit of Unity and Harmony, but not of chaos.

05/21/2021

Plague rules update 5/20/21:

Due to various concerns, the Archdiocese has determined that we will continue asking people to wear masks while at Mass (including those who are immune).
I seems that the reasons why the proposed idea of allowing the immune to end the need for both masks and social distancing did not end up working out for now were such things as: concern about feeding division and strife over segregating those who have been immunised from those who are unable to be immunised (or those who for whatever personal reason are choosing not to be immunized), potential invasion of privacy in asking people to disclose medical status (i.e. their immunity or lack thereof), that the bishops in the three dioceses across Washington wanted to have as similar policies as possible, and that retaining masks would enable the universal loosening of the rest of the precautions that I will describe below.

However, the good news is that we no longer need to practice social distancing, nor either use alternate pews or arrange ourselves in a "checkerboard" arrangement. There is also no limit to groups of people sitting together. The Archdiocese has suggested that churches that are not nearing or exceeding their 50% capacity should consider retaining distancing, but we are very much hitting our capacity, so we will not be continuing required distancing.

Also, we may use pew missals again (we still can't sing hymns, but we can at least follow along with the Readings). We will need to begin marking the holiday or week of the year on the hymn boards again, though, so that people can find the correct pages.

Also, we need no longer sanitize pews between Masses or take other surface sanitation precautions. We will still keep sensation wipes around for those who do have an acute need, or a personal concern.

All that said, individuals who still do wish to take additional precautions or maintain current precautions will be reasonably accommodated. At this time, I don't want to pre-designate a "social distancing" section of our churches for those taking what will going forward be extra precautions. However, if there are a number of folks who want to be exceedingly cautious such that sitting in your customary places would greatly reduce our overall seating capacity, please be considerate to your neighbors (everyone else, even the immune, are still making the adaptation of retaining a mask for your sake, after all...) and try to sit in the same general area of the church as others taking extra precautions. If this informal approach ends up being unwieldy, or reduces our capacity too much, we can move to having a designated extra precaution area in each church.

So, not quite all that could have been hoped for, but at least it is measurable positive movement toward normality again.

Thanks,
Fr Thompson

05/18/2021

Sharon Redd, a parishioner shared this poem she wrote about Pentecost, and I would like to share it with the rest of the parish:

They Spoke of Jesus, His death on the cross,
Which they considered naught but loss.

The room was shut, and they did fear,
the twelve apostles gathered there.

Then they heard the sound of wind,
it filled the house, and all within.

Spirit coming as tongue of fire,
Settling on each, now filled with desire,

To tell of Jesus’ mighty deeds,
That he died for us, and for our needs.

Filled with joy, and peace and love
Proclaiming Christ, our Savior from above.

They spoke in tongues to all those near,
and thousands converted, then and there.

They heard the good news, and they believed,
That Christ died for them, they were relieved

Formerly filled with sin and shame,
Now baptized in Christ, with Heaven their aim.

Filled with Christ’s Holy Spirit,
They took God’s love and willingly shared it.

As we are likewise called today,
To share God’s love in every way.