Sacred Heart Church

August Newsletter 2020

Dear Parish Family,

As promised, I continue with my monthly newsletter as this pandemic continues to teach us how important it is to stay connected. You can also stay connected with our social media, www.sacredheartchurch-nh.com and our Facebook page.

It is great to see our people coming back to Mass, little by little. We have worked hard to put strict and consistent safety protocols in place with our newly added safe environment ministry, which includes 15 people. If people feel safe due to our hard work efforts, they will return to church. We are close to half of our people returning to Mass and I am very pleased.

I ask you to continue to all work together so all of our people can get into church with the decreased seating available with social distancing. Please consider coming to the 4 pm Mass as there is more seating available at the evening Mass. I don’t want anyone to be turned away. Please be seated in the pews from the middle first so there is room for others to fill in at the ends. There are 12-24 additional chairs in the back allowing us a capacity of 150 for social distancing, which is half of our seating at 325.

I thank you for not parking in the middle of the lot and parking only within the painted lines. As a reminder, do not park at TD Bank/Faithbridge Church as their lot has limited space which they need. Our neighbors at Walgreens are allowing us to park there if need be so we should have plenty of spaces.

I am most grateful with the financial giving during the past four months of the pandemic but we cannot take for granted that such giving will be constant. The first of the month brings in the highest amount as many give monthly and give online. The second through fourth weeks are lower but the balance has brought us to the $14K per month that we need to stay within our budget and pay our bills. We cut 10 percent in the budget this year and that has helped us to maintain the same offertory base but we need to increase that offertory base next year to keep the parish vibrant and growing. Many of our folks have increased their offertory and this generosity has sustained us. We still have a lower percentage of individuals and families giving on the whole. We need more people to do their part. Please consider signing up for online giving. If you are interested, call the parish office and leave a message, and Julie will call you back and walk you through the very easy process of signing up. As stated a few weeks ago, I will report the end-of-the-year data and the finance council observations in the fall. The monthly giving synopsis is on the next page.

Many of our pre-pandemic projects have been completed:

* The installation of the short black galvanized steel fencing in front of the Bishop Gendron Center
* Bob Rheault located and repaired leaks in the piping which was flooding the Bishop Gendron Center
* New fencing added to enclose the opening of the TD Bank fence, which was considered a liability by our Diocesan Insurance

Projects still to be completed (Fall 2020):
* We will plant shrubbery along the driveway from the office entrance to the road
* We will be putting ivy and morning glories along the TD fence to soften the institutional look
* A tar berm will be installed from the top of the parking lot along the side of the driveway past the entrance of the BG Center bottom level, trying to redirect the water flow from the office and food pantry

* The small meeting room in the hall is being renovated with all of the Sacred Heart photographs and historical photos that were part of the office. We are dedicating this meeting room (which holds up to 12 people) to Bishop Peter Libasci for his dedication to Sacred Heart in the next chapter of our history.

* We currently have 5 cameras on the Ring security system and we are in the process of placing an outside and inside camera on the ramp side of the church for security.

As I mentioned last week at Mass, please consider sending a thank you note to the Manchester Police Department, thanking them for all of their hard work in the city and for their constant patrolling and watch care over Sacred Heart Parish. Their address is: Manchester Police Department, 405 Valley Street, Manchester, NH 03103. It would be wonderful to flood the MPD with appreciation from our Sacred Heart Community.

We continue to try and identify all of our Sacred Heart people. If you are not receiving Parable Magazine, please call the office and leave a message for Julie to add you to the list. This is a parish gift to you.

I have enclosed a prayer card of St. Michael with the prayer on the back that we pray every week at the end of Mass. I encourage you to memorize it and say it daily, or have it available so you can read it daily!

Let us praise God daily for all he has done for us and will continue to do. I thank you all for walking this journey together throughout the pandemic. Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place all our trust in you!

God bless you and your family!

Fr. Steve Marcoux, Your Pastor