Family Mass

On Sunday, December 17, families from Gesu and our sister parish, St. Pius, gathered at the 11:30am Mass at St. Pius for a Family Mass for Gaudete Sunday. While open to anyone, the Mass was intended to be a specific outreach to families with children ages 10 and under to feel free to bring their children to church, wiggles, screams and all, without feeling any embarrassment or hesitancy.

At the Mass, Fr. Craig (with an elf hat on his head) came down and sat on the sanctuary steps and invited the children to come up and sit around him as he preached to them about the importance of joy and encouraged them to be sources of joy in the remaining time left before Christmas.

After Mass there was a time of fellowship in the school cafeteria that included a potluck lunch, cookie decorating, and just shared time together as a Christian community. The group included longtime members of both parishes as well as people new to the parish who had just come by for the Family Mass event.

All of this is part of a new joint parish effort underway at Gesu and St. Pius called the Young Families Initiative aiming to bring together our young families in order to create community. Click the link to see more information about this initiative!