FATHER JIM'S JOTS - St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 17, 2025 ~ Photo provided by Connie Hom

 St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 17, 2025

Father Jim's Jots

Greetings,

For many of our youth of all ages this upcoming week is their first week of school!  In our parish, we have over a dozen youth who are students at All Saints Catholic School and four high school students at Cristo Rey Richmond High School!  Please keep our youth in your prayers:

Lord our God,

in your wisdom and love, you surround us with the mysteries of the universe.  Send Your Spirit upon these students and fill them with Your wisdom and blessings.  Grant that they may devote themselves to their studies and draw ever closer to You, the source of all knowledge.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Next weekend, I will be at St. Michael Catholic Church in Glen Allen assisting with the ticket sales for our annual raffle.  I will be celebrating all five weekend Masses at St. Mike's and Msgr. Walter Barrett will celebrate our Sunday Masses.  I will also be away on the following Sunday, August 31st and Msgr. Barrett will be celebrating our Masses then as well.  I will be keeping all of those who will be traveling in the next few weeks as summer starts to come to end in my prayers.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim, Pastor

~ Image Source

Baptism at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - August 2025 ~ Photos provided by Connie Hom

 Summer Baptism

St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

August 2025

~ Photos provided by Connie Hom

 

St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Blessing Our School Children - Sunday, August 17, 2025 ~ Photos by Dan Burns

 St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Sunday, August 17, 2025

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Blessing all of our children heading back to school.

FATHER JIM'S JOTS - St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 10. 2025

St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 10, 2025

 

FATHER JIM'S JOTS

Greetings,

Soon we will be starting OCIA which means "Order of Christian Initiation for Adults."  This program is for adults who either received Baptism, but not the Sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation or who have not received any sacraments including Baptism.  I am pleased that Chris and Beng Metzger will be the lead Catechism instructors for this program.  I will also be teaching several of the OCIA classes on a variety of subjects mostly about the Church and its Sacraments.  Our OCIA group will meet after the 10 am Mass for about 45 min.  The schedule will be shared in the bulletin in a few weeks.  If you are interested in becoming Catholic or receiving the rest of your Sacraments, please join us to learn more about the Church and Catholic Faith this Fall and Spring.  For more information or to get signed up, please contact the Parish Office or Chris Metzger at cmetzger@stelizcc.org.

Jubilee Pilgrimage Information:  To learn more about this event and to register to attend, please see the other page of this bulletin.  We have now invited other parish communities to open up this event to their parishioners.  If you are interested in attending, please sign up as soon as possible.

If you are interested in picking up tickets for our annual raffle, please see me after Mass or reach out to Eva in the Parish Office (evabalkarli@stelizcc.org).  On August 24th, I will be away to help sell our raffle tickets at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Glen Allen.  I will be celebrating all five of their Masses.  In an earlier bulletin, I announced that Bishop Knestout would be visiting for Commonwealth Catholic Charities' groundbreaking on that same Sunday, but that has been rescheduled for September.  More info will be shared in next week's bulletin.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim, Pastor

~ Image Source

Affordable Housing Coming to St. Elizabeth Catholic Church Property! ~ Photo and Commentary by Dee Dee Hull - St. Elizabeth Facebook Page

St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Greenway Village Project

August 13, 2025

Construction has started to bring affordable housing to the neighborhood.  Greenway Village is a new housing development on St. Elizabeth Church Property.  According to the Commonwealth Catholic Charities website, the site will have fourteen buildings with 56 rental units.

The project is a collaboration between St. Elizabeth, Richmond City, the Department of Historic Resources, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and CCC.

Please be patient with construction, but it will be worth it!

FATHER JIM'S JOTS - St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 3, 2025

St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

August 3, 2025

FATHER JIM'S JOTS

Greetings,

I would like to thank everyone who has participated in the raffle so far!  We have handed out almost 2000 tickets and so far, have received $2,380.  Thank you for your generosity.  To learn about how you can get more raffle tickets, please see this bulletin.

 I encourage all of us to reflect on how we can continue to embrace the teachings of Christ and His Church.  Our Parish holds Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on the First Friday of every month.  We pray the rosary as a group every night on Zoom at 7 p.m. (visit the E-Bulletin to get the link to join).  In September, we will be taking a Pilgrimage to the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception to learn more about the oldest parish community in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and enrich our faith as Pilgrims of Hope. To join us, click the link in this bulletin or call the Parish Office.

Consider joining one of our many ministries that work to support our community during our Sunday Liturgies and in our neighborhood every day.

St. Elizabeth has the following Ministries:

Altar Linen Cleaning, Altar Servers, Art & Environment, Bereavement Support, Building and Grounds, Gospel Choir & Cantor, Community Life, Education Ministry, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Food Pantry, Faith Formation, Haiti Outreach, Homebound & Sick, Hospitality, Human/Social Concerns, Justice Committee, Lectors, Media (Zoom), Family Ministry.

Want to learn about the work that each ministry does?

Visit our website at www.stelizcc.org/ministry/ to find all the details and contact information.  On Sunday, September 7th, we will have our annual Ministry Sign-Up Fair where you will be able to speak with our Ministry Leaders to learn more and find the right ministry for you!

Blessings,

Fr. Jim, Pastor 

 ~ Image Source

FATHER JIM'S JOTS - St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 27, 2025

 St. Elizabeth Catholic Church

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 27, 2025

FATHER JIM'S JOTS 

Greetings,

Special thanks to Liz Wiznerowicz and her team of volunteers who have helped for the past two weeks at Tusome Summer School, hosted at All Saints Catholic School.  The first week there were 27 students; the second week there were 31 students and a total of 51 volunteers over the two weeks.  The students were tutored in reading, English and Math.

A few weeks ago, the American Red Cross did a training in CPR and how to use our new AED Defibrillator.  We purchased the Defibrillator and had the Red Cross training with a Grant from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond.  The following individuals (Sr. Mary Mwangi, Domonique Edwards, Yao Thompson, Denise Letendre, Rosemary Overton, Beverley Bryant, Miranda Wiznerowicz, Katrinia Murray Bledsoe, Rita Hatchett and Aimerance Fariala) from our parish took the training in CPR and how to use the Defibrillator which is now mounted on the wall in a special AED Cabinet near the rear of the church by the statue of St. Joseph.

The Parish Raffle is off to a great start.  Thanks for your help.  We are asking each household to purchase 3 books of tickets, a total of $60.  You can get your raffle tickets at church or in the parish office.  The drawing will be on Homecoming Sunday in November.  For more information, please see this bulletin.

Thank you to everyone for your generosity in our Haiti collections last week.  The collection total was $669.00.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim, Pastor 

~ Image Source

 

A Little Early History of St. Elizabeth Catholic Church - Rev. Thomas Edward Mitchell, Third Pastor Of St. Elizabeth's ~ Letter provided by Fr. Jim

 

 

July 27, 2025

Dear Fr. Arsenault,

Although I reside in Northern Virginia, I receive St. Elizabeth's bulletin by email weekly and enjoy reading of parish activities.  That interest accrues from the fact that my maternal uncle, Thomas Edward Mitchell, was the third pastor of the church from 1947 until his death in 1950.  Before that assignment, he was the first Dean of Social Work at the Catholic University of America, Director of Catholic Charities of the Richmond Diocese, Parochial Vicar in several Virginia parishes and a seminarian at St. Mary's in Baltimore and the North American College in Rome.  He was ordained at St. John Lateran's Church in Rome in 1927.  I am  attaching several articles from "The Catholic Virginian" written about him at the time of his death.

When he was on the faculty at Catholic University, "Uncle Tom" became an important presence in my life during my growing up in Staunton and Washington.  I admired him greatly.  I am writing a short account of his priestly life, that includes a brief but productive time at St. Elizabeth's, when he reopened the parochial school.  Research for that work will take me to Richmond in the coming months, at which time I hope to make your acquaintance.

(Final paragraph omitted since not relevant to the history of St. Elizabeth)

I join Uncle Tom in asking God's blessings upon you and your parishioners of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

(Mr.) Ashley L. Hawken