A Heart Full of Gratitude

Dear Parishioners,

My time here at St. Anne and her missions comes to a close this week. It is poetic that this is the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary time as well as my 13th year as your pastor. This is a very sad thing for me and for many of you. This is the longest I have stayed in one parish assignment which makes this all the more difficult to bid you, goodbye. But, looking back, my heart is full of gratitude. So, pardon if this last letter rambles some. So be it.

I leave with wonderful memories and lessons. I have had the privilege to work with your children, been on retreats with your teens, offered blessings for your graduations, helped you prepare for marriage, presided over your weddings, baptized your children, blessed your anniversaries, anointed you when you were sick, offered some of you the commendation of the dying, and celebrated your loved ones funerals, and mourned with you at their burials. I have been deeply touched that you allowed me in to your struggles and was humbled to hear your confessions. I was honored to join you in your many celebrations of life and visited many of you in the hospital, care facilities, retirement centers, and homes. I made many friends, and have felt your prayerful support throughout these thirteen years. I could go on and on.

I became a priest as an effort to thank God for all that he has done for me. And in return, he gave me a grand adventure unlike any I could have imagined. All of you are part of that adventure which now turns a page to a new chapter. And so, thank you for what you have taught me. Thank you for your patience with me. Thank you for gently correcting me. Thank you for saying yes when I asked you to join a ministry. Thank you for stepping up to serve without even being asked. Thank you for putting up with my long homilies. Thank you for listening and sharing your faith with me. Thank you for being Christ’s hands and feet for me. Thank you for laughing at my silly jokes. Thank you for Helping me when I needed it. Thank you for giving me a ride when I needed to go to the hospital for health needs. Thank you for being kind to me when I failed to be kind. Thank you for forgiving me when I messed up. Thank you for sticking around to clean up after an event. Thank you for being gentle when I was hurting. Thank you for the cards you sent me on my birthday, Christmas, and Easter. Thank you for letting me take your picture for our website or social media presence. Thank you for bringing me cookies. Thank you for taking me out for meals. Thank you for participating in the planning, and building of our new church! Thank you for letting me park my trailer on your property so I could go camping. Thank you for listening when I was trying to teach. Thank you for speaking when I needed to listen. Thank you for reminding me that I am precious in God’s eyes and that he delights in me.

Thank you to all the wonderful staff I have known in my thirteen years. Thank you to those parishioners who visited our sick and dying. Thank you for checking on fellow parishioners when you noticed that they were unusually absent. Thank you for being so generous when a need arose. Thank you for accompanying new parishioners and visitors alike. Thank you for participating in our annual church open house and booth at the county fair. Thank you for your patience through all the changes during the pandemic. Thank you for stepping up to make our Food Box Program so successful. Thank you for giving money to the church so we could employ the talented staff that we have. Thank you for naming St. Anne, our school, and/or her missions in your estate planning. Thank you for coming and participating at Mass. Thank you for serving in our liturgical ministries, bible studies, music groups, rosary groups, our grade school, Faith Formation, youth and confirmation ministry, and even auxiliary ministries, most notably the Knights of Columbus and St. Vincent de Paul. Thank you for praying, serving, cleaning, fixing, and helping when no one was watching. Of course God saw it all… and sometimes I did too.

Thank you, most of all, for loving me, and showing me what it is to be a saint, being passionately in love with our Lord, and willing to share that joy with others. I take all these things with me, as I move to Holy Trinity. You have been a gift of immeasurable value to me. You have blessed me with Christ’s presence, for which I will be forever grateful.

So, don’t hesitate to come to Mass at Holy Trinity in Beaverton. Pray for me so that I can be the pastor that they need at this time, and that I will be responsive to their needs as God would want me to be. I will continue to pray for you. A big part of my heart will always be here. I will pop in to check on you on Facebook an YouTube. I hope to see the new and amazing things that will happen under Fr. Wolf, your new pastor.

My heart is full, and there is not enough room to write it here. So, I leave with the miraculous prayer given to me from my mother which has changed so many hearts: O Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything!

Blessings! Goodbye! God be with you! Thank you!

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor (2009-2022)

Thank you!

Dear Parishioners,

This past weekend we celebrated our annual parish picnic after being on a hiatus due to the pandemic. It was a joyous occasion to symbolically end the new church building project by burning a copy of our $1.5 mil. loan agreement from the Archdiocese. It was also a wonderful opportunity to begin, in earnest, the process of saying goodbye to myself, Fr. Stephen, and Sandra. The thoughts and hearts that were shared were truly wonderful. These are those times when God wants to tell us how much he loves us, and he does it through his people. Thank you all for your outpouring of love for me, Fr. Stephen, and Sandra. I will forever keep that celebration in my heart.

As you may know, next weekend will be my last as your pastor. Thank you to all who have lovingly walked with me in my stumbling, helped me get back up, challenged me to change, encouraged me when I felt down, forgiven me when I sinned, and prayed for me and my vocation. I am better for it all. Thank you, God, for such a blessing you have given me in the people of St. Anne, Our Lady of the River, and St. Patrick of the Forest.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor

Priest Reassignments

Dear Parishioners,

Last week, the official priest assignments around the Archdiocese’s were made public. I will be moving to Holy Trinity in Beaverton while Fr. Stephen will be moving to St. Mary’s in Eugene which will now pick up St. Catherine of Sienna. Fr. Ron Nelson is the pastor at St. Mary’s and many of you may remember him when he was our Parochial Vicar some fourteen years ago. I will be working alongside Fr. Steve Geer who will be coming as a “priest in residence.” Please pray for us during the coming weeks, and I know you will. We are so blest and spoiled by your love and support! I will be actually leaving on June 28 in the early morning. I don’t know Fr. Stephen’s schedule as of this writing since the news is still so fresh. Nonetheless, I am sure he will communicate that information when he knows.

Fr. Robert Wolf will be coming to us as our new pastor. He will be moving here on June 30th and will take up residence at the parish house where Fr. Stephen currently resides. Fr. Joseph Mujaeropiro, AJ (Apostles of Jesus) has been assigned as our new Parochial Vicar. I have yet to hear from him, as of this writing, but rest assured, he will be present by the first weekend of July. I heard through the grapevine that he is well liked by adult parishioners and children alike in his current parish of St. Joseph in Salem where is serves as a Parochial Vicar.

Fr. Wolf was born in 1979 in Salem. He eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 2005 followed by a Masters of Divinity, both from Mount Angel Seminary. He  was ordained in 2010 and was sent as a Parochial Vicar to Our Lady of the Lake parish in Lake Oswego. Following that assignment, he was sent to St. Monica parish in Coos Bay where he has been since 2012. I have known Fr. Wolf since he was a seminarian, as he spent a summer with me at St. Anthony in Forest Grove. I found him to be kind, soft spoken, has a good sense of humor and a gentle warm laugh to match, and has many hobbies from camping to comic books. He will be helping offer the Latin Mass in Sacred Heart in rotation with Fr. Brent Crowe from Our Lady of the Mountain in Ashland and Fr. Theo Lange, the coming pastor of Shepherd of the Valley.

Fr. Joseph Mujaeropiro was born in 1968 in South Sudan and attended school in South Sudan and Kenya. He was ordained for the Apostles of Jesus Aug. 23, 2003 in a Ugandan refugee camp, where his mother was living. That basic information alone should peak our interest for the stories and experiences he has to share. He studied Arabic and Islamic studies in Egypt and Rome before attending the Angelicum in Rome, 2013-15. He served as a parochial vicar and then pastor of Holy Family-Blessed Sacrament and St. John Vianney Parish in the Bronx, New York, for several years before going to Rome to work on his doctoral dissertation on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. He returned to New York early due to the coronavirus, served at St. Angela Merici Church in the Bronx, and was most recently assigned to St. Joseph in Salem. He will be residing in the parish house I currently live in. Along with Fr. Joseph being sent to our Vicariate, one of his brothers in the community of the Apostles of Jesus, Fr. Silverino Kwebuza will be stationed locally at Shepherd of the Valley.

In my communication with the community last week before some of the Masses, I shared erroneously that Sacred Heart parish would be saying good by to Fr. Moises Kumulmac. As it turns out, he will be staying another year! They will continue with a staff of three priests. All these arrangements/reassignments will give our Vicariate some breathing room, so-to-speak, for attaining substitute help when needed.

With this information in our time of change, please pray also for all forty-four priests who will be either reassigned, receive new responsibilities, or will be on leaves of absence. Change is hard. Saying “goodbye” needs to be imbued with our faith and hope if it is to retain its meaning and keep our souls open to the Holy Spirit. Please know of my prayers for you as you grieve and wait with expectation for the new chapter in the life of our parish and missions.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor

Goodbye

Dear Parishioners,

This month of June will mark the end of official ministry here for both Fr. José and Jessica McCormick. With all parting, there is sadness, and this time is no exception. In the weeks ahead, it will be important for us all to show our thanks and offer our prayers and blessings for them both. I write this now so we all have time to be active about saying goodbye.

Remember that the word, “goodbye” comes from the phrase, “God be with you.” This sentiment and prayer is perfect for ministers of the Church. Goodbye, however, can be a difficult thing for many. Yet, I want to encourage us to embrace it since it is a God-filled action. That’s right, saying “goodbye” is an action that should be faith-filled and full of abiding hope that one day we will see them again. It also speaks of a confidence that God has something new and good for our future.

It is a reminder of what Jesus promised us, that is that he will “not leave us orphans,” but instead give us “another Advocate,” that is the Holy Spirit. So, we need to take Jesus at his word and live it seriously. We need to have his commandments in our hearts and observe them. Such observations sometimes require us to say, “Goodbye.”

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor