Weekend of April 20-21, 2024

Dear Friends,

Many of you will have noticed a very large machine with a cherry-picker type attachment sitting on the side of Saint Timothy’s Church in the rectory parking lot. This machine is called a “boom lift,” and is being used for work that we are having done on the exterior of the church building.

The city of Philadelphia mandates inspections of the outsides of buildings that are higher than a specified height. Saint Timothy’s Church required this inspection because of its height (Saint Bartholomew Church did not). The city’s license and inspection division facilitates the inspection. When the church was inspected it was found that we had several places where there was loose limestone and mortar, as well as four places where there were partially broken windows. All of these repairs needed to be completed (or we would have faced a hefty fine from the city), so we received three bids and contracted with a masonry company to complete the repairs. In a spirit of transparency and full disclosure, the total cost of the masonry repairs is $15.025.00. On top of this great expense, the cost of the inspection itself was $10,150.00, making the entire cost of the project $25,175.00.

Of course, it is a good thing for us to get these repairs completed, since we certainly wouldn’t want any of the loose mortar and limestone to fall and hurt anyone. The reality for us, though, is the fact that this is obviously a significant, but necessary, expense for which we did not budget in this fiscal year.

As I told you when I gave the annual financial report (and as you could see in the report itself), we work hard to make sure your weekly contributions are put to good use, and Tom Sullivan, our business manager and I take very seriously our stewardship of  the resources you so generously share with our parish. I take this opportunity to thank you for your generosity to your parish. Believe me when I tell you that your generosity does not go unnoticed and is never taken for granted. I pray each day that your generosity will be rewarded by our gracious God a hundredfold, both in this life as well as in the life to come.

A good number of you have also noticed that there are two statues missing from the sanctuary of the lower church. In two separate and unfortunate accidents, both the statue of the Blessed Mother and the statue of Saint Joseph holding the child Jesus toppled off the wall and smashed into many pieces. Both statues were broken beyond repair. The accident in which the Blessed Mother broke took place in the late fall, and Saint Joseph broke during Holy Week.  Thank God, no one was hurt in either incident.

I have already replaced the statues. Our faithful facilities managers, Francesco and Nick, are working to make sure that the shelves upon which the statues sit, are securely set into the wall, to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Most of you are aware that both last weekend as well as the weekend before, we took a second collection for the benefit of the Little Sisters of the Poor. If you did not contribute to this collection, you may still do so by placing your contribution in the Sunday collection basket (in an envelope marked “Little Sisters”), or by dropping it off at the rectory. I thank all of you for your generosity, and I assure you that our dear Little Sisters, as well as their residents at Holy Family Home in West Philadelphia, remember you in their prayers each day.

            Know that you and those you love are daily remembered in my Mass and my prayers.

                                                                                    Love and prayers,
                                                                                    Father Olivere