Happy Labor Day! I hope you’ll have a peaceful and joyful day of rest. You are welcome to join us for our Labor Day Mass at 8 a.m. at IHM church. A big thank you to everyone who gave us good questions last weekend. I’ll answer some below, and then more in the weeks to come (some questions are edited for brevity or clarity).

Please explain more about the new parish logo.

We started from the previous SSP logo, since SSP parish received the people who worshiped at SJB and IHM churches. We added the names of our three churches because our long-term strategy is three churches in one united parish. (As I mentioned back in June, we’ll keep evaluating whether or not this strategy leads to growth; it will take some time before we can make a fair evaluation.)

We kept the central image in the logo the same: a palm branch. In ancient times people gave palm branches to victors; Christians pictured martyrs holding palm branches after the martyrs died for their witness to Jesus. The martyrs triumphed over persecution, sin, and death. We kept the palm leaf from the previous SSP logo because both Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen Protomartyr were martyrs. Saint John the Baptist was the last martyr recorded in the Bible before Jesus died. Saint Stephen Protomartyr was the first martyr recorded in the Bible after Jesus rose from the dead; “Protomartyr” means “first

We kept a lot of red in the logo because red is the color for martyrs, reminding us of their blood. We changed the inner circle to blue because blue is the color of Mary, the patron of our third church, IHM. We changed the palm branch from white to yellow. From the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow come all the beautiful colors of the color wheel. We hope our three communities combine in wide-ranging beauty.

When is SSP church going to have Mass on Sunday?

At the moment, we don’t have plans to have a regularly scheduled Mass at SSP church on Sundays. We’d consider adding a Sunday Mass at SSP church to our regular schedule for the weekend when our congregation has grown so much that we need to add another Mass on Sundays. May that day come! We do have plans to use SSP church for occasional special Masses on Sunday. For example, First Holy Communion is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 2023.

Why do we have four vested clerics — two priests and two deacons — on the altar at each at Mass?

I asked Deacon Dana, Deacon Joe, and Msgr. Bommarito to come to weekend Masses during August as often as they could so that people from all three churches could start to get to know them. They are big gifts to our parish, and the more people who know us, the more people we can help. Additionally, both Msgr. Bommarito and I love Mass and giving Holy Communion, so you’ll probably often see us both at Mass in the future, too.

Two priests and two deacons on the altar but we can't have a Mass on Sunday at SSP. How about at 9 a.m.?

We set up our weekend Mass schedule with one Mass at each church because we would like “one united parish in three churches” to work as our long-term strategy. The Archdiocese has signaled that they see SSP parish as a one-priest parish long-term. So we need to choose a Mass schedule that works well with a single priest. Since Msgr. Bommarito is a respected, veteran priest, the Archdiocese might send him to take care of another parish if a pastor gets sick. The current schedule may also help new people meet Jesus, find his love, and become his disciples in our parish. I’ve loved the vibrant Masses and full churches given by our current Mass schedule.