"That's Just My Two Cents Worth"

    Have you ever given your opinion about something, and then said, “That’s just my two cents worth”? It’s a way of letting the person you’re talking to know that this is just your own opinion, and the listener is free to disagree. When we add our “two cents worth” to a discussion, we let people know that, “yes indeed, this is what I think, but I could be wrong. Take it for what it’s worth –  a great deal perhaps, or not much, maybe.”
   Do you remember “sound bites”? We don’t hear about them much anymore, maybe because sound bites have been replaced with tweets. But back in the late 1980’s before Twitter limited our expression of ideas to 140 characters – someone coined the term ‘sound bite’ to describe a short, memorable quote that summed up an important point from a longer speech. Politicians love using sound bites in their campaigns,( i.e. “Make America Great Again”),  and as network news became more dependent on advertising dollars, the news media began using sound bites to increase interest in upcoming news stories – right after “a message from our sponsors.” A sound bite is someone’s way of saying, “Here’s my two cents worth, but there might be more value after the commercial break.” In today’s Gospel we hear of the “Widow’s Mite”, a  courageous woman of Faith and Trust who gave her all, literally her two last cents (older translation of the Bible used to say that she put in “two pennies” in the collection receptacle). 
Well, for the first time since I’ve been assigned here as your Pastor in July 2020, I found that I need to put in my “two cents” and write about money. Last week we were blessed with a very generous collection (and attendance), and I thank you all very deeply, but several times recently we’ve missed our collection target of $7000 a week to operate our campus (salaries, repairs, outreach etc.)  We have not seen such a disparity happen so frequently in any other year from 2021-2023. Honestly, it should actually be about $7500 that is needed, and the Parish Council has recommended that we start using this actual figure, but if we did, the variance between what we need, and what we receive would skew even farther.
   I know that money is very tight for many parishioners, especially our younger couples raising a family, but if we could  all dig just a little deeper each week, we would meet, or exceed our need. Please use these upcoming Sundays - the great Solemnity of Christ the King, and the beginning of a new liturgical year in Advent to see what you can do to assist us with your time (which so many of you do),  your talents (which so many of you share) and your treasure to financially keep our Parish able to assist, inspire, soothe, enlighten and accompany YOU on your pilgrimage to Holiness.
 
 
Faithfully, Your Friend and Pastor,
Fr. Christopher C. Stainbrook KHS