From Father George's Desk 1/25/2026

On behalf of my brother, Paul, and my entire family, I extend our sincere and grateful thanks to the members of the Holy Family and St. John the Evangelist parish families for the most generous and sincere outpouring of sympathies and promises of prayer at the passing of our mother, Lois, earlier this month. Most members of the parishes never had the opportunity to meet Mom since she had already been battling her cancer for several years by the time I arrived in Latrobe and was only ever able to visit me here a few times. Yet so many of you regularly inquired how she was doing and reminded me of your prayers for her and our family. She was always most appreciative of those prayers, as were we. Your cards, prayers of support, expressions of sympathy, and just your presence with us at the funeral home or at the Funeral Mass was, and continues to be, so very deeply appreciated by my entire family. On a more personal note, I want to thank all of you for helping me through one of the most difficult months of my life. I experienced God’s strength and grace in so many little ways that made these challenging days just a little easier. I also must thank the members of our parish staffs not only for their untiring support, but also for managing things around the parish so that I could spend as much time as possible with my family. I am especially grateful to Deacon Mike and to Thomas Oldenburg for their presence and their ministry at Mom’s funeral Mass. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Father Bill McGuirk for handling some of the liturgical needs of the parish in my absence. I am extremely grateful for their fraternal support. May God abundantly bless all of you for your kindness and generosity! Next weekend we will roll into the month of February—short on days, long on activity… • Monday, February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or Candlemas Day. We will be blessing candles at Mass that morning at St. John; if you have any candles you would like to have blessed for use at home, bring them to Mass that morning. • Tuesday, February 3 is St. Blase Day. We will have the customary blessing of throats at the end of Mass that morning at Holy Family. • Ash Wednesday is February 18. The Little Black Books for Lent will be available soon. Also, you are invited to bring back your old palms from last year to burned to makes ashes for this year (receptacles at available at each church to deposit them) and come to the palm burning on Monday, February 16 at St. John. • I am glad that we are able to bring back the very popular St. John Fish Frys this Lent, beginning February 20. They have been greatly missed, not only by parishioners but by the larger community. Volunteers are needed for us to have a successful season; please see info elsewhere in today’s bulletin for details on getting involved. • Our next quarterly Anointing Mass is scheduled for Saturday, February 28 at 10:00AM at St. John. Be sure to keep watching the bulletin over the next few weeks for more info on all of these events and more! Just a gentle reminder about the strain the winter weather puts on the parish budget. Every time it snows— even if it’s only a “nuisance snow”—parking lots need to be cleared and sidewalks need to be shoveled and salted. And, of course, the furnaces and boilers get quite a workout. The terrible weather conditions also have a negative impact on Mass attendance and our weekly offertory is often reflective of that. So, I put forth this gentle reminder to please keep current with your offertory. If you are not able to make it to Mass, hold on to your envelopes until you can or you can always mail them to the office. Finally, on Wednesday we honor one of the greatest thinkers and writers in Church history, St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas was born near Naples, Italy in 1225. As a young man, he entered the recently-formed Dominican Order, against his family’s wishes. He ventured to Paris to study under the great theologian (and later, saint) Albert the Great. Because of his reserved nature, some of his classmates thought he was unintelligent and began to call him the “dumb ox”. Behind Thomas’ external nature was an exceedingly brilliant mind that produced numerous theological texts, including his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, which explains the truths of the faith by demonstrating the intimate relationship between reason and revelation. Thomas was also a man of deep prayer who realized that the mysteries of God cannot be fully expressed by words. The “Dumb Ox” died in 1274 and was canonized fifty years after his death. He is also known as the “angelic doctor” because of his influence on theological thought right up to our present day