Dear Friends,
Welcome to St. James Parish and our informative website! I hope that this site and these words will help you get a feel and vision for who we are as a vibrant Catholic community. This is a parish with wonderful opportunities for service and stewardship, and I invite you to take a good look at all the possibilities we have for you to “make” Church happen in Arlington Heights. This summer season is always special because we tend to downsize many of our regular activities and focus on a few significant ones.
Sunner brings another great event at St. James this year. We will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of our theater group by presenting the outstanding musical “Fiddler on the Roof”. This will be our 3rd production of Fiddler and I hope you might take the time to see what creative forces in music, dance, and drama we have here at St. James. The performances will be held on the weekends starting July 17th. Please go to www.stjamestheatre.org for all the important details.
Although this is not an “event”, there is an important question I would like to raise to all of you reading this article. I would like to ask you to think seriously about the religious formation of your children. Where are they receiving their religious training? Are they involved in any of the wonderful religious education programs offered here at St. James? If you have not yet made a decision about where to send your child to school, I strongly recommend that you consider our St. James Blue Ribbon School. We offer an excellent academic program, with Christ as an unseen presence in the classrooms and as the foundation of all our learning. The Blue Ribbon of Excellence is a much-merited award for our day school, and our curriculum offers students an opportunity to grow both academically and spiritually. Information about our school and its programs can be found on the web page. If you haven’t checked us out yet, please do so today!
Speaking of school, “Sister” is coming back to St. James on September 13th. We have secured a great new production from the originators of Late Night Catechism. They are coming to St. James on September 13th in the afternoon before the Bears game. You will not want to miss this event! More information can be found on this website about “Sister” coming to St. James. Please check it out for details. One of the great things we will also be doing after Sister makes her appearance is to have an Adult Faith Formation event every month here at St. James. These events will be held on Sunday afternoons with babysitting available for those who would like to take advantage of this service. Following the presentation all will be invited to attend the 5:00 pm Mass.
I would like to call your attention to one last thing – that will be happening on Sunday, August 30th. We will be part of a pilgrimage to raise awareness about racial justice. This event will include the parishes of St. Colette, St. Edna and St. Raymond de Penafort. At each of these parishes a group of people will be gathering for prayer and reflection on the need to be concerned about the effects of racism in our communities. The pilgrimage will start at St. Colette’s at 2:00 pm and then move to St. Edna’s at 2:45pm. The group plans to be here at St. James for prayer and reflection at 3:30pm and then move on to St. Raymond’s by 4:15pm. Please try to join the group here, or at any of the parishes, for some prayer and reflection to promote racial justice in our communities.
Additional information about this event will be in our bulletin and on the website during the summer.
Thanks for reading this and have a great summer. See you in church!
Fr. Bill Zavaski