Explore attending the ILM this year. The ILM is accepting nominations for the academic year 2021-2022, classes begin September 2021.

This Sunday, there will be a second collection to reduce our $1.8 million-dollar parish debt. The sooner we pay off this debt, the more funds we will have available to support other vital services in our growing parish. Over the last 12 months, we were able to reduce our debt by $100,000 through your generosity in this monthly collection.

Staff Work Day

St. Francis of Assisi Parish operates on a fiscal year, which begins on July 1 and ends on June 30. Our annual budget also runs from July to June. We are so very grateful to all who supported the work of our Parish over the past 12 months.

Thank you to everyone for your support of the mission and ministries of our parish. During the month of June, our average weekly collection was $17,798.

Although all new priest assignments begin on July 1, Fr. Athanasius remains in his home county of Uganda which is on a COVID lockdown until July 30. Let us pray for his return to good health. We are on God’s timetable.

We did it! We made our goal! Our thanks to the 428 parishioners who turned in their gifts and pledges towards the 2021 ADA ($230,000).

Our Red Zinfandel is a red wine grape, grown extensively in California since the mid-1800s, is grown in few other places in the world.

On behalf of Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, we want to thank your parishioners for their incredible support. Our final accounting for donations during 2020 by the members of St. Francis of Assisi Parish was $95,782. We are truly grateful to have this faithful level of support.

Read the full statement: www.usccb.org/news/2021/situation-us-mexico-border

The program offers the chance to rediscover yourself, your spouse, and a loving relationship in your marriage. 10's of 1000's headed for divorce have successfully saved their marriages by attending.

Our loan balance on July 1, 2020, was $2,029,798.  During the first six months of this fiscal year (Jul – Dec 2020), we made both principal and interest payments: $144,246 (principal) and $49,924 (interest). These payments were funded from both the Sunday Offertory ($144,346) and ($49,824) from our first of the month 2nd collection.  Our loan balance as of Dec. 31, 2020, was $1,885,552. 

In order to perpetuate the entrustment of the whole Church to the powerful patronage of the Custos of Jesus, Pope Francis has established that, from today's date, the anniversary of the decree of proclamation as well as a sacred day to the Blessed Virgin Immaculate and Bride of the most chaste Joseph, up to December 8, 2021, a special Year of Saint Joseph is celebrated, in which every faithful following his example can daily strengthen their life of faith in the full fulfillment of God's will.

The Gospel of St. Mark – Cycle B On 29 November 2020, the Church begins a new liturgical year by celebrating the start of Advent. At the same time, we began to hear a new voice in our Sunday gospels. After a year during which we have regularly listened to Matthew on Sundays, we now attend to Mark. This shortest of all New Testament gospels is likely the first to have been written, yet it often tells of Jesus’ ministry in more detail than either Matthew or Luke (for example, the miracle stories at Mk 5:1–20 or Mk 9:14–29).

Every Catholic should be registered in a parish. Besides the active support and involvement that the registration enables, the parish registration is also a condition for many sacraments including Baptism and Matrimony. It is therefore important to register at your local parish as soon as possible.

National Vocation Awareness Week will be celebrated in our country November 1-7, 2020. Please ask Our Lord for more dedicated, holy priests, deacons and consecrated men and women. May they be inspired by Jesus Christ, supported by our faith community, and respond generously to God’s gift of a vocation. In addition to Bishop’s video link above about creating a culture of vocation, each seminarian is recording a short video about themselves.

In his third Encyclical, Fratelli tutti , Pope Francis addresses his renewed call to universal fraternity “to all people of good will, regardless of their religious convictions.” Amid the “noisy potpourri of facts and opinions” present in today’s world, the Holy Father suggests respectful dialogue and proposes that we answer with “a new vision of fraternity and social friendship" to build a better, more just, and peaceful world, with the contribution of all: people and institutions. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, On this Labor Day weekend, on which we Americans have traditionally rested from work and spent time with family and friends, often in backyard cookouts, I wish to share a few thoughts with you. I wish to reflect with you about the Lord’s Day and its focus on worship, rest, and solidarity as well as our baptismal call to live as God’s co-workers, building up the Kingdom of God through the work of our hands, minds, and spirits.

St. Francis reminds us that we should always “start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” Last fiscal year, our parishioners donated $50,000 to our St. Francis Fund Collection. In response to the needs of the many less fortunate in our neighborhood— turning to us, when there is nowhere else to turn.

Bishop Patrick J. McGrath, who retired in May 2019, celebrates his 50th Anniversary of Ordination as a Priest on Sunday, June 7. During the week leading up to his Jubilee, the bishop responded to some questions put to him by The Valley Catholic.