Christ Our Light Catholic Church - Loudonville, NY

September 14 and 15, 2024
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

BRINGING OUR PARISH NETWORK TO LIFE

I share with you this communication to the parents and catechists of St. Clare’s & Christ Our Light.  This is just another way of “right sizing” our parishes as we’ve discussed

I’m writing to bring you up to date with respect to how we envision reshaping our Faith Formation ministries going forward.

Over the past several weeks, I have written bulletin articles about Parish Networks as we, the Church of Albany, strive to adapt to the realities of our time.  Parish Networks are not about merging or closing parishes, but rather seek to “right size” them in order to make the best use of our limited human and financial resources and to place us in the best position to evangelize pro-actively. St. Clare’s and Christ Our Light are a Parish Network.  

Mary Nicholson, Pastoral Associate for Faith Formation at St. Clare’s is retiring in June 2025.  This gives us an opportunity to migrate our parishes’ Faith Formation ministries into a seamless, consolidated ministry that effectively serves the needs of both parishes.   I have asked Kari Kurtz, Pastoral Associate for Faith Formation & Evangelization at Christ Our Light, to lead this joint ministry effective with Mary’s retirement.

Our young people already celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation together and so unifying their immediate preparation makes sense.  Thus, starting this fall our young people in 10^th grade will prepare for their 2025 Confirmation as one group.  Until Mary retires our Grades K-9 will continue as usual.

I encourage you to review my recent bulletin articles on Parish Networks on each parish’s website.  If you have any questions, or would like to speak to me about how we are moving forward, I may be reached at Richard.Thiesen@rcda.org or by calling either 518.456.3112 (StC) or 518.459.6635 (COL).

I am confident that the Holy Spirit is guiding us into new ways of being church in our time.  May it be so.