 Welcome to Holy Family Catholic Community’s website! I hope that in the many pages of this website you will find life-giving formation and information for your growing spiritual life.
When I was first assigned to Holy Family as pastor, the late Cardinal Bernardin looked at me and said, “Keep it Catholic.” I think we have truly accomplished the Cardinal’s wishes.
We are a faith community in the Roman Catholic tradition, but we also pride ourselves on being an evangelizing Catholic community, open and welcoming to all, specifically trying to re-evangelize Catholics who are active in their faith, but also welcome the unchurched, the under-churched, and those who perhaps have been alienated from the church in some way.
We seek to minister to all age groups, but one of our special concerns is the evangelization of adolescents and young adults. If you go to the pages that focus on those ministries, I think that you will find our offerings innovative and expansive.
We also are a people who emphasize a great deal the experience of genuine community over pseudo-community. To that end, our religious education efforts are very much family-based rather than child oriented, trying to foster the family as the basic community that parishioners experience.
We also have a number of opportunities for people to engage in Small Christian Community faith-sharing groups, as well as Bible Study Groups. Again, go to those pages for more information.
We try at Holy Family also to reach out to people through the media and technology that are available to us. For the last 26 years, Dawn Mayer, our Pastoral Associate, Director of Family F.A.I.T.H., Director of Pastoral Ministry, and I have hosted a radio show called Horizons that mixes faith-sharing with contemporary rock music. That radio show can be listened to any time, or pulled down for I-Pod use by connecting with the website link called The Stream. It is our dream in the future to have a substantive Internet radio station with multiple opportunities for different kinds of programming. Horizons is also seen on Comcast television in over 50 suburbs, and our 9:00 a.m. mass is seen on Comcast at varying times on Sunday afternoons in different neighborhoods.
We are a community committed to contemplation and action for mercy and justice. On one side of our worship space there is a chapel called The Sacred Heart Chapel that has 24 hours a day/7 days a week adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. On the other side of the church is a room dedicated to the work of mercy and justice. Our parish has articulated seven areas of mercy and justice that we are especially committed to. I hope you will go to those pages and become acquainted with the areas of mercy and justice that you could become involved in.
I could go on and on about the greatness of Holy Family Parish. Rather, I encourage you to use this website creatively to explore who we are, and where and how you could become part of us.
Welcome to Holy Family!
In Jesus,
Pat Brennan, Pastor
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