Pastor’s Desk ~ August 11, 2024

Dear Fellow Parishioners,

Every year it seems that the end of summer, and the beginning of the new school year, arrive more and more quickly. In the childhoods of many of us who were raised in California, the first day of school was always the Tuesday after Labor Day. Hot on its heels came California Admission Day, September 9, and the state song, “I Love You, California.” It celebrates the many virtues of our state, but isn’t entirely tuneful or singable. (Check out YouTube if you want to hear it.)

Our elementary school will be opening toward the end of this coming week. The first couple of days of school are inevitably taken up with students re-connecting with their friends, sharing their summer experiences, and settling into their new desks and classrooms for a new year. The joy of teaching and observing children is that everything is new to them – whether dinosaurs, religion, history, etc. The ultimate goal of our school is to show our students how to be life-long prayers and life-long learners. There is no better preparation for life or way to live.

This Sunday, August 11, the 9:00 am Mass will celebrate the opening of school, followed by a reception in the Parish Hall. I encourage as many of you as can to attend.

At the elementary school (SVES), we are beginning our new Transitional Kindergarten program. This allows our youngest students the opportunity to ease into Kindergarten and elementary school at the age and maturity level which is most appropriate for them. The summer has been spent in remodeling certain areas of the elementary school building to accommodate the TKers. While most of us have attended Kindergarten, visiting as an adult is a revelation. (The desks and chairs are so tiny, it’s hard to imagine any human being using them. They look like dollhouse furniture.)

The elementary school also received a $100,000 gift from an historically generous parish family to expand and improve our elementary school library. After a few finishing touches are done, it will be ready for this new school year. As soon as the school year is underway, there will be a formal ceremony to bless it and the young minds that will use it.

St. Vincent High is no longer a parish high school, but an “independent Catholic school” with its own governing board and responsibility for financing and administrating the school. This is the result of a year-long process, memorialized in a 15-25 year lease I and diocesan officials have signed with their independent non-profit corporation. While I support and pray for their success, the “new” school will now operate independently of the parish and its pastor. This change, in my view, was long overdue.

Through the course of this past year, I have taken with utmost seriousness my fiduciary responsibility to both the parish and the schools, which I think will become more clear in coming months. In the meantime, I ask that you join me in keeping all of our parish students – public and private – in your prayers as they begin this new year.

Blessings, Fr. Bill Donahue