With a joyful and sorrowful heart I write to you this week.

We are celebrating the Feast of our great patron St. Andrew. This is always a time that brings me great joy as we celebrate who we are in relationship to him. Because he is our patron we are able to transfer his feast to Sunday. Usually we would transfer it to the closest Sunday either before or after the date of his feast, November 30, but the Sunday after is the first Sunday of Advent which cannot be trumped and the Sunday before is the Solemnity of Christ the King, which also cannot be trumped. So we move it to this Sunday and prepare ourselves for the end of the liturgical year and the beginning of a new one as we wrap it all up with the celebration of our patron.

In St. Andrew we have a wonderful guide and example as we walk with Christ as His disciples. I recommend that you get to know him a bit better by reading the scriptures that involve him. We had the opportunity to do this in the Pastoral Council and it has borne fruit in the development of our new mission statement which you heard in the homily. I will print it here next week as well. As I write this we have not yet finalized it with the Pastoral Council.

Our mission flows from our response to God as disciples. Like St Andrew we have been called to serve Him. In a wonderfully unique way, God has created each of us and given us gifts to build up the Kingdom here in Sumner. If you have not done so already please return you stewardship pledge cards after prayerfully discerning what God is calling you to do, how He is calling you to respond. It was that prayerful searching heart that led St. Andrew to recognize and follow Christ. Pray and ask St. Andrew to help you to hear how Christ is calling you to respond to His love.

As I said at the front I am also sorrowful. This sorrow is from the many thousands of our brothers and sisters who are suffering from the typhoon in the Philippines. It is hard to imagine the devastation that this huge storm caused. Typhoon Haiyan is the most powerful storm ever to be recorded and it has caused thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people are now without food and shelter. The people of the Philippines need our help and the U.S. Catholic Bishops are calling us to help them in this effort. Our charitable organization is Catholic Relief Services, which is already on the ground and mobilized to help the people in most need as quickly as possible.

How Catholic Relief Services is Helping

CRS staff began preparing a response as the storm neared and is working in coordination with Caritas Philippines, the Philippine government and other humanitarian organizations.

• CRS is immediately distributing thousands of temporary A-frame shelters. Each can house a family of five and 32,000 of these shelters are arriving in Cebu City, near the zone of destruction, in the next few days.

• Along with the shelters, CRS is handing out thousands of hygiene kits that include soap, towels and toothpaste as well as kits that includes plastic basins, cooking pots, utensils and other items that may have been lost in the storm.

• CRS has committed an initial $20 million in immediate relief and recovery.

National Collection

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, outgoing President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has called for a national collection for the humanitarian and institutional needs of the Catholic Church in the Philippines and surrounding areas impacted by Typhoon Haiyan as soon as the possible. These funds will be used to support the efforts of the USCCB and CRS to respond to the immediate emergency need for water, food, shelter and medical care and assist in the long-term recovery from the disaster. Collection funds will also be used to support the long-term need to rebuild the Church after widespread destruction.

If you would like to donate to this effort we will be taking up a second collection next Sunday or you can go directly to CRS.org and you will find a link to donate directly to the relief effort in the Philippines. In this time we also need to prayerfully support our brothers and sisters who are suffering from the loss of their homes and loved ones. Archbishop Sartain will be celebrating Mass for the victims of the typhoon on Friday, November 22^nd at 12:10 p.m. at St. James Cathedral. Even if you are not able to attend the Mass, join your prayers to all the faithful who will gather with the Archbishop to pray that day.

St. Andrew, pray for us.

Fr. Jack D. Shrum