Last week, we said “goodbye” to the Christmas season. As we begin the liturgical season of Ordinary time, we find ourselves, in this month of January, wondering what our winter days will look like. I can certainly brighten your day a bit with some of the things we are looking forward to in the next few weeks. First of all, I was able to book some time in the Bishop’s schedule for him to visit us here at St. Catherine. Bishop Lohse has actually been here to St. Catherine several times for meetings that we have hosted. This will be the first time that he actually has the opportunity to meet our parishioners and enjoy a social event with us. Please mark your calendars for the afternoon and evening of Saturday, January 27th. Bishop Lohse will be joining us for the 4 p.m. Mass and then attending the Knights of Columbus Chili Cook-Off in Marian Hall immediately following the Mass. It will be a nice opportunity, if you haven’t done so already, to meet our new Bishop! And with the fact that it’s January, a hot cup of chili makes it even better!
Secondly, everything has finally fallen into place for us to refresh our Marian Hall bathrooms. Due to construction issues (and lack of funding at that time) when we were working on the Marian Kitchen renovation project, we had to postpone working on these bathrooms. After we had the floor tiles crack in a few places, causing a hazard, we were able to get the project back on track with several donations and a favorable project cost. Most of the fixtures are original and from the 1980’s. It’s time to freshen up these bathrooms and replace a few things that are worn out. This work may start as early as the last week of January or the first week of February. During this time, we will need to close both the men’s and women’s bathrooms in this hall completely so that construction can go faster. I’ll have more details on all of this in a few weeks.