Sept. 10, 2017
Dear Brothers and sisters of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,
Welcome back! Welcome home!
Amid all the tragic news about hurricanes and world peace issues, there is also news on the parish front that I hope you will notice.
Sometime this week every registered parishioner will receive a post card in the mail from OLMC. And every one who has given us their e-mail address will receive a notice as well.
The subject of both is the use of the Faith Direct system of parish support.
Ever since I came to OLMC, I have been describing our community as having 1300 registered families or individuals.
This summer we coordinated all our various parish lists into one and learned that the precise number of registered members is 1096. This was a jolt to me, tho one could see it coming. We have noted less people in attendance most Sundays. We received $ 30,000 less in the Sunday offertory collection in the year just ended than in 2015-16. In the past summer there were several Sundays when total Mass attendance was less than 600 persons.
Faith Direct, the system for regular church contribution via direct transfer from a parishioner account into the church account, makes a huge difference in our annual offertory contributions.
I am asking you to consider Faith Direct as your vehicle of Parish support. With many of us on the road so much each year, that would be a step of parish stewardship that would be steady and could be counted on.
Thanks for considering it and thanks for being the Church family of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
As announced on Sept. 3 there will be a special second collection taken at all Masses this weekend after communion to support victims of Hurricane Harvey
Sincerely yours in Christ and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,
fr. Dan