October 18th, 2011

Hello everyone!

Well, the school year is well underway and so are things here at Saint Joseph and Saint Pius X! We also, as you can already tell, have our e-mail list up and running! We have a lot of great things planned for this year but first we have a few things we'd like you to know about!

Firstly, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to our new pastor, Father Robert Loftus! Father Loftus recently served as parochial vicar of St.
Bernard Parish, Fitchburg. Prior to that, he was the college chaplain at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Worcester State University. We welcome him to the parish and look forward to his involvement in our youth ministry!

In other news, we have our annual Living Rosary taking place on November 15th from 7-8 pm. The event is sponsored by the Saint Joseph and Saint Pius X Middle School program and all are invited to attend!

For those of you wondering, I have put together a calendar for this year's religious ed program which will be handed out by your children's catechist this coming Sunday the 23rd. Please keep in mind that due to the nature of our New England weather, the end date of the program will not be determined until a later date, however, all days that we will not have class due to holidays are listed. Your child's catechist and I will have a meeting in mid-march to discuss a date for the last class and you'll be informed of it then via e-mail. Thank you for your patience.

Also, from now until October 30th, we will be having a Religious Education Halloween Costume Drive. We know that costumes tend to be rather expensive (and tend to be only used once or twice) so we are looking for donations for those families who may be able to use them! Please bring any lightly worn Halloween costumes to class on the 23rd or the 30th to help! If you're in need of a little Halloween help, please contact me via email to set up a time to go through them!

Individual Announcements:

K-5: If you have not received a book yet, they should be coming in a bit later this week or early next week. I put the order in this morning so you'll have them soon.

First Penance & First Communion PARENTS: Please remember that we NEED your child's baptismal record if they were not baptized in either Saint Joseph or Saint Pius X! Contrary to popular belief, we don't need the original copy. A photocopy of the original will do just fine. If you do not know where your child's baptismal record is, please contact the church of their baptism to obtain another.

Middle School: The first Youth Group meeting for this year will be held from 8:05-8:30 on Tuesday, October 25th. Please join us for a brainstorming session on some fun things we can do this coming year! All middle schoolers are invited to attend!

Parents and Students: Please keep in mind that we do have a FACEBOOK! I know there has been some difficulty finding it so I've placed a link below! Simply click on the link and then hit the button that says "Like"! Here it is:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Saint-Joseph-Saint-Pius-X-Religious-Ed...

We also have a website: http://www.stjoseph-stpiusx.com/

Over the next few weeks we'll be posting a lot of pictures on Facebook and on the website of our memories of Father Steve to create a memorial page of sorts! If you have any pictures that you'd like to have posted, please send them to me via e-mail or simply drop them by the rectory to get scanned in!

Other than that, I think we're all set! I look forward to great year in our program and, as always, if you have any questions, queries, or conundrums, please contact me at 781-929-4855 or at richardsonCRE@gmail.com.

Peace,

-Justin