In Touch With The Parish Community

Thank you to everyone who took the time to input Christmas information to help Catholics easily access confession, penance and Mass times. Our goal is to build a database that will provide Mass times for every church in Florida. The Christmas listings were a great beginning. Your help is greatly appreciated.

If you haven’t registered and entered your information for Christmas, please do so now. You won’t make the print edition but will be featured on the online edition of the Florida Catholic.

God bless you during this beautiful season of Advent.

To input your information:

• Access the page at http://thefloridacatholic.org/parish/parish_registry

• Register and choose a user name and password. This will allow us to keep your parish information updated and you will be able to access your information and make changes at any time.
• After registering, you will log in again. You will now see your parish name and information you provided at registration. To the left will be a column that includes Christmas Schedule. Click on it.
• For each category (Confessions, Penance Services, Christmas Eve Masses, Christmas Day Masses) you will choose the date, time, language and second language if applicable. If it is only in one language, leave the last column labeled “Bilingual (optional)” blank. If it is in two languages, for instance English and Spanish, choose the first language under the first language column and the second under the bilingual optional column. Again, if there is only one language for the service, just leave the “Bilingual (optional)” column as it is now.
• After entering all of your information, please look at the left-hand column again and choose Sign Out. If you do not sign out, the information will not be saved so be sure to sign out.
• If at any time your schedule changes, you may log back in, go to the Christmas Schedule and change the information. Be sure once again to sign out when you finish so changes are saved.
Any questions? You may contact me HERE.

It’s now or never! Today is the final day for parishes to register for the FREE Christmas schedule listing. The schedules will appear in the Dec. 19 edition of the newspaper and be online as well. We have created a new form online that allows you to add as many times and language options as needed. Please read the following important pointers for entering your information:

• Access the page at http://thefloridacatholic.org/parish/parish_registry
• Register and choose a user name and password. This will allow us to keep your parish information updated and you will be able to access your information and make changes at any time.
• After registering, you will log in again. You will now see your parish name and information you provided at registration. To the left will be a column that includes Christmas Schedule. Click on it.
• For each category (Confessions, Penance Services, Christmas Eve Masses, Christmas Day Masses) you will choose the date, time, language and second language if applicable. If it is only in one language, leave the last column labeled “Bilingual (optional)” blank. If it is in two languages, for instance English and Spanish, choose the first language under the first language column and the second under the bilingual optional column. Again, if there is only one language for the service, just leave the “Bilingual (optional)” column as it is now.
• After entering all of your information, please look at the left-hand column again and choose Sign Out. If you do not sign out, the information will not be saved so be sure to sign out.
• If at any time your schedule changes, you may log back in, go to the Christmas Schedule and change the information. Be sure once again to sign out when you finish so changes are saved.
Any questions? You may contact me HERE.

I am grateful for the help and guidance of Ed Foster, our Web editor and designer, for helping me establish a “blog” for internal Florida Catholic news. It is somewhat humorous to think in this modern age, where so many means of communication are available, we often forget to share our joys and frustrations beyond our own four walls. Mark Twain said it best; “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” I analyze that to mean communications can strike down or make bright the dark moments of confusion. My hope is that through this blog, we will make bright our communications so as to build up, not breakdown. Welcome.

We are down to the final days of our Food for Our Families food drive. Donations have been steady and much appreciated. The most difficult part of the drive has been a lack of collection and distribution centers in some areas. In most cases, the local Catholic Charities have made trips to parishes to pick up large quantities of donations. For that we are deeply grateful. It’s not too late to participate and during tough economic times basic staples are badly needed. For a list of food items needed and drop-off locations, please visit www.thefloridacatholic.org and click on the Food for Our Families banner. Thank you.

Thank you very much to all our high school students who have entered the 2008 Christmas art contest. We have received more than 100 entries from around the state. God has definitely granted the gift of artistic ability to many of our teens and we greatly appreciate you sharing your gift with others. We are in the process of judging the entries now. As a reminder, selected artwork will be displayed online at www.thefloridacatholic.org the first week in December. Winning entries will be featured in the print edition Dec. 19. Thank you.