We are looking for a few good men/women who like to bake to help make desserts for our Youth Nights in Lancaster. The next gathering would be January 29 at 7:00 p.m. Please contact Leigh Boorn via email [email protected] if you can help. Thank You in Advance!

THANK YOU for your generous support of St. Clement Scrip Wars, with your help we surpassed our goal of $130,000, reaching $186,000 in scrip sold and the students will enjoy an all-school ice-cream party!

Still considering a New Year’s resolution? Decide now to take part in one of Grant Co. Right to Life’s upcoming 2025 activities! 1. Pray for GCRTL’s efforts to bring a Safe Haven Baby Box to Grant County. 2. Help plan a movie night! Join a team to bring the full-length documentary, Unthinkable, by former PP clinic director, Abby Johnson, to a Grant Co. theater. (Or donate to offset costs.) 3. 2/4/25: Participate - from anywhere – in a 6 p.m. GCRTL Zoom meeting. Call for log-in info. 4. 3/1/25: Volunteer at a GCRTL table at a late a.m. Platteville Public Library Involvement Fair. 5. 4/5/25: Attend a free WI RTL Pregnancy Help Center conference in Wausau. By 3/21/25, register at https://www.classy.org/event/2025-pregnancy-help-center-spring-conference/e626057 . 6. Participate in a group to distribute small gifts to nursing home residents. Consider making a walker bag or lap blanket for residents. (GCRTL will provide materials.) For more info., text or call Marge at 608.732.0850 or email [email protected] (NEW address!)

To the Family Promise Staff, Volunteers and Board Members, Thank you so much for everything you have done for me and my family over the last six months. You have touched our lives in ways you will never know. When we came into this program, we were in a really bad time in our lives. I felt so low [and] broken. You guys helped me build myself back up. You gave all of us hope and peace of mind. Thank you for giving us what we needed and more. I will cherish the memories made and the lessons learned. You made me not only a better person, but a better parent. God bless all of you and everything you do for the families in this county that are in need. Thank you again!”

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our church look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parish! God bless.

The 2025 St. Clement Parish calendars are here and can be picked up in the back of church. We wish to extend a big Thank You to Rita Schmitz and Katie Miles of Homeward Bound for once again supplying our calendars for us. This year’s calendars have been donated by them in memory of their dear husband and father, Greg Schmitz, co-owner of Homeward Bound. Greg was a fabulous man of faith, joy and love to family, friends and so generous in our parish and community. Thank You Rita and Katie for your generosity!

We invite you to find help through Retrouvaille, (ret-tro-vi), where husbands and wives are helped to re-discover each other. In Retrouvaille, couples discover they are not alone. There is hope and grace. Madison’s upcoming Retrouvaille program is January 31 – February 2, 2025 at the Green Lake Conference Center. Follow up sessions will be in Madison. Call (920) 369-8836 or check our website at www.helpourmarriage.org Your confidentiality is always respected.

Hello St. Clement Families: As Christmas approaches, we are checking to see if there is interest in again forming a youth choir for Christmas Eve. Last years’ experience was beautiful. We are asking 4th-8th grade students to join us for three rehearsals: We would like you to make at least two of these (all three is better). Wednesday, Dec. 11 @ 5:45 - 6:45 PM Wednesday, Dec. 18 @ 5:45 - 6:45 PM Monday, Dec. 23rd @ 5:45 - 6:45 PM. We plan to have these students sing at the 4:00 PM Christmas Eve Mass. Please respond as soon as possible or by Saturday, Dec. 7, either by email: [email protected] or by calling or texting (608) 778-0709. Please respond either way (yes or no …or with questions). If there is enough interest, we will move forward with the rehearsals. If not, we will move forward with a different plan. Our goal is to prepare a prelude song or two and have the kids sing as Communion is being distributed. We look forward to making a joyful sound for Christmas. Sincerely, David Murphy and Patricia Leh Murphy [email protected] (608) 778-0709

St. Clement Parish offers an opportunity to remember your deceased loved ones through Christmas memorial donations. The money we collect will go toward decorating our church during Advent and throughout the Christmas Season. Please put your donation in an envelope marked with your name and name(s) of those you wish to remember, and drop the envelope in the offertory basket, the wooden podium by the parish office entrance or at the Parish Office. All checks should be payable to St. Clement Parish and turned in by Dec. 16. Thank you!

St. Clement is once again taking part in the Grant County Holiday Project to assist families in need have a better Christmas. The “Giving Trees” are up and ready for you to grab a leaf. Please return all gifts to the church by Sunday, December 15, wrapping will begin right after Mass. Gift cards or cash should be placed in the wooden podium outside the parish office. Be sure to attach the tag to the gift! We have adopted 7 families who will be grateful for our care and compassion this Christmas. Thank you to Lynn Crooks, Ashleigh Hampton, Cheryl Raisbeck, and Emily and Sue Schildgen for organizing this work of mercy and love.

The start date is December 27 (start noon on Friday)- 29 (ends 3:30 on Sunday). TEC (Together Encountering Christ) is centered on the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Our Shepherd Bishop Donald Hying has also centered his 'Go Make Disciples' initiative on that same theme. TEC is especially designed to help us grow in our love for Christ and our Holy Catholic Church. It is an amazing experience for any age who are young at heart and at least 15 years of age. Regardless of your present walk in our Catholic Faith, you will be rejuvenated. This is also a 'shout out' to those of you who have already experienced a TEC retreat and would like to help out. Fr. Greg Ihm will be our Spiritual Director. Jeff Jackson is the lay Director and can be reached at 608.778.6027 Or [email protected] More information about TEC can be found at www.MadisonDiocese.org/TEC

Our next week to host families with children experiencing homelessness will be the week of December 1 – 7. Volunteer sign-up sheets are in the back of the church. Last Monday was the feast of St. Martin of Tours. One night, Martin, a Roman soldier, was entering a city during the winter. There at the gates he met a beggar freezing in the cold. Martin took his military cloak and cut it into 2 pieces, giving one to the beggar. That night, Jesus appeared to him in a dream, telling Martin that He, Jesus, was that beggar in disguise. That event changed his life. Like St. Martin, we put our faith into action by our care and concern for God’s children, especially those in need. Help us support families that are trying to make ends meet and to achieve independence by volunteering for our host week. Contact Bill Manthe at 723-4990 or Peg Jonas at 723-2051 if you have questions.

St. Clement CCW invites women of St. Joseph The Worker Pastorate to an Advent Celebration at the historic L. J. Arthur House, 210 N. Jefferson St, Lancaster, on Thursday, Dec. 12, 6:00-8:00 p.m. A light meal of appetizers, sweet treats and punch will be served. Fr. Mark Miller will give an Advent reflection. All women of our pastorate are members of CCW and welcome to attend. Please let us know by Dec. 9 that you plan to celebrate with us. Call or text Bernadette Schaefer at 608-732-7475, or Marcia Hampton at 608-732-8849.

Please contact Leigh Boorn at 309-370-6036 or [email protected], if you would be able to make a pan of bars or donate cookies for the Family Faith Formations, Religious Ed., or High School Faith Formations.

The long-awaited and overdue 2023 St. Clement Parish Directories have finally arrived! It was my understanding that the directories, like the photographs, would be mailed directly to those who had photos taken at the parish. But that is not the case. All were delivered to the parish office. We will be distributing them after the weekend Masses to those who had photos taken or who submitted photos. We will also be hand delivering some of them. You can stop by the office to pick yours up too. If you did not have your photo taken, directories can be purchased for $15 (the cost of a photo submission). The 2023 directory summarizes and totals the number of sacramental events that have taken place since we were established in 1859. This is the last photo directory for St. Clement Parish. Once our pastorate is merged, the next directory will be that of St. Joseph the Worker Parish which will include all seven churches. ~Bill Manthe

Thank You to everyone who attended our and special thanks to the many wonderful volunteers and generous donors. We couldn’t have a successful festival without you! Congratulations to our raffle winners: $5,000 - Maddie Driscoll (gave $500 back) $3,000 - Stan Miles $1,000 - Mary Jo Roesch $500 - Tom McLimans $100 - Kathy Edwards (gave all to school) $100 - Patricia Adams $100 - Larry Duncan $100 - Connie Murray $50 - Judy Leeser $50 - Mary Chapman

October is traditionally devoted to the Holy Rosary! Legend has it that St. Dominic received the Rosary from Our Lady after he had been praying and doing penance for his lack of success in combatting the Albigensian heresy; in his vision, Mary gave Dominic the Rosary as a spiritual weapon and encouraged him to preach its use to others. The Mysteries of the Rosary are rooted in Scripture and offer us a summary of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we pray the Rosary, we join Mary in the contemplation of these Mysteries and ask her to unite and conform us to her Son as we ponder His Paschal Mystery. This month, consider adding a Rosary to your daily prayer routine! The Joyful Mysteries are typically prayed on Monday and Saturday, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesday and Friday, the Luminous Mysteries on Thursday, and the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesday and Sunday, but the faithful are welcome to pray any Mysteries at any time. If you have a longer morning and evening commute, that can be a good time to get in a Rosary! And if a full Rosary each day feels like too much, try praying one Decade a day, perhaps accompanying it with a meditation on the corresponding Scripture passage to help you pray the Mystery more deeply. A guide to the Rosary can be found here: https://www.usccb.org/how-to-pray-the-rosary "May Mary help us to welcome within ourselves the grace emanating from these Mysteries, so that through us we can 'water' society, beginning with our daily relationships, and purifying them from so many negative forces, thus opening them to the newness of God. The Rosary, when it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanical and superficial but profoundly, it brings, in fact, peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the center of each 'Hail Mary'." -Pope Benedict XVI

On Friday, November 1, we will be having our monthly First Friday Exposition and Adoration of our Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Adoration begins following the 8:15 morning Mass and continues through the day and night, concluding with Benediction at 9 AM on Saturday. Spend an hour with our Lord in quiet and prayer by signing up on the form by the Fatima Chapel. As one man told St. John Vianney, when asked about what he did during Adoration, “I look at Him [Jesus] and He looks at me.” Those in love gaze at one another, and spend time talking, listening and being together. Spend time with the One who loves you infinitely and intimately by being with Him in Adoration.

A month ago I was concerned about the status of our parish directories, as they should have arrived. I called the company and what I was told didn't seem right. So I called again the next day to clarify what was the delay. It seems that two things happened. First, when the directory was received by them after proofing, it was forgotten due to a clerical error. Second, after they realized their error, staff/worker shortages at the company prevented them from printing the directories. Due to my call, they emailed me another proof to look over. I have proofed it again and I have sent it back to the company for printing. How quickly this will happen is dependent upon their worker status. Be sure that I will be following up with them until the directories arrive. Patience is a virtue, right? Thank you for this! ~Bill

The St. Clement Adult Faith Formation continues this week on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 9 AM. We will be viewing Part 2 of Bishop Robert Barron’s Pivotal Players episode on G. K. Chesterton. Gilbert Keith Chesterton became a Catholic late in life and is often referred to as, “The Apostle of Common Sense.” Join us as we learn more about the life and wisdom of this remarkable man. All are welcome!