AlanBarber.Org
Sunday, August 21, 2005
The first mass of Blessed John XXIII Catholic Parish
Blessed John XXIII Parish is a newly created Parish for the northwestern area of Wood County, Ohio. Earlier this year the Toledo Catholic Diocese spent a great deal of time reorganizing the area. Unfortunately, many parishes were closed or were setup to share a pastor between two parishes. For all the downsizing there was good news in the creation of several new parishes. Blessed John XXII (that’s 23 in roman numerals) Parish was one of those created to better serve the Perrysburg, Ohio area.
Technically, I don’t live within the parish’s area and my area already has a long standing parish. However, I’ve never really felt a part of that parish. It was the Church I went to but it wasn’t like it was “my” Church.
Blessed John XXIII being brand new and just starting really draws my interest and perhaps might be the parish for me to feel home at.
The thing I find funny is how I was drawn to this place. I’ve been rather lacking in the religion department for some time. It’s probably a mix of growing up and not finding religion to be important in a modern busy life and that I was rather burned out by the sexual abuse scandals. I still believed in God and was spiritual but just couldn’t stand the idea of organized religion for a while.
Maybe it’s me maturing or maybe it’s God working in mysterious ways but these last few weeks I’ve had a bit of a reawaking of sorts. I’ve been thinking a bit and actually talked with my Girlfriend about the need for religion. I hadn’t been keeping track of the going-ons of The Church but I just happen to read the newspaper Friday and in the religion section I saw the article about the first mass being held for the new Blessed John XXIII Parish.
So today was the first Mass they held. Mass will be held is the Perrysburg High School commons area at 9:30am every Sunday. This will be the scheduled location through May of 2006. They still need to find a location to build the new Church. Of course before you can do that you have to build the community and that’s what’s going on right now.
The opportunity to not only go to mass but get active in the community excites me. I’m hoping that perhaps I can offer my services in the technical areas. Perhaps help build a website for the parish, setup computers to manage office needs, etc. Since everything is new and need of people to help I know I can be of service in some small way.
on 08/21/2005 at 01:47 PM
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/messages/pont_messages/documents/hf_j-xxiii_mes_19610908_peace_en.html