These are exciting times for the St. Patrick’s Catholic Community. Being Christian has always been one of life’s most challenging and totally rewarding experiences. Our faith requires a generous spirit to do the Lord’s work and a willingness to see God’s Church reach out to those in need. Each generation before us has left something upon which we can build. We must do the same. Our generation is challenged to look farther than the bounds of our congregational limits. We are asked to reach beyond our church to all people.

The purpose of St. Patrick’s Parish is to carry out God’s work of helping each of us toward the ultimate goal for which we are intended. The Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies a parish as, “The place where all the faithful can be gathered together for the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The Parish initiates the Christian people into the ordinary expression of the liturgical life: it gathers them together in this celebration; it teaches Christ’s saving doctrine; it practices the charity of the Lord in good works and brotherly love.”

Indelibly woven into the fabric of life at St. Patrick’s Parish are many characteristics which find their base and strength in its families. While the function of these families is to help hold society together, produce and educate the young, provide food and shelter, socialize and communicate; the organization of groups into common interests such as St. Patrick’s Parish is imperative and essential for total community success.

St. John Chrysostom’s reference to worship within a Parish provides even further insight,

“You cannot pray at home as at a church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, and the prayers of priests.”