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!

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!)

Everyone is invited to attend St. Mary's Lasagna Supper at St. Mary School on Saturday, January 25 from 4:30-7:30 p.m. There will also be a Silent Auction and classroom displays.

THANK YOU to everyone who supported the Scrip Push! The goal was $30,000 and $69,700.00 in Scrip was purchased! The St. Mary's students will enjoy a pizza and movie party hosted by the Home & School Association.

Thank you to everyone who worked to make our churches beautiful inside and out for Christmas. Thank you to all who gave donations for the flowers and decorations. We can be very proud of our beautiful churches. Thank you to everyone who has very generously supported our parishes throughout the year and at Christmastime. May God’s love and blessings be with you and your family in 2025! St. Mary’s School is deeply grateful to everyone for their very generous gifts to St. Mary’s teachers and staff. A special thank you to all the families who have participated in Family Faith Formation. It is such a blessing to watch the families share a meal, pray together, and grow in their faith. Thanks to our prayer warriors, snack providers and catechists who provide their time to help build God's Kingdom on Earth.

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.

St Mary’s School has teamed up with Hamann’s Helping Hands again this holiday season to help gathering gifts for children that are spending the holidays in the hospital. We will be collecting gifts until December 20.

St. Mary's Home and School Association is sponsoring a Calendar Raffle for the month of January. Please contact the school office at 608-994-2435 if you are interested in purchasing a chance to win. All money must be turned in by December 20.

The annual "Christmas Club" where you can donate money for gifts for the staff has begun. Donations may be left at the parish office or school.

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

Share the gift of life by donating blood. The Red Cross will be holding a blood drive at St. Mary School in Bloomington on November 25 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

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 council now has 180 Form 100s in our hands. The Form 100s were needed for the council to be able to start the Member Transfer Process. The member transfer will start immediately in hopes to be completed by January 1, 2025. The council gave out $300 Charity Checks to two brother knights with health conditions. Council 4416 does not hold meetings during the holidays. The next council meeting will be on Jan. 21, 2025 in St. Charles’ School Computer Lab in Cassville at 7:30 p.m.

Operation Santa Claus in the River Ridge area is sponsored by the West Grant Lions Club to help those families and individuals in need to have a Merry Christmas. The club serves the Bagley, Bloomington, Glen Haven, Mt. Hope and Patch Grove areas. The members of the West Grant Lions Club have already been checking the five communities and surrounding areas served by the club for people in need. This has been necessary to provide enough time for the proper ordering of food items and other needed items. If a new situation develops that the club should know about, please contact Lion Mike Farrell at 9143 Kussmaul Rd., Mt. Hope, WI 53816. His phone number is: 608-988-4527. Money donations which are needed for the purchase of food items may be mailed to the West Grant Lions Club Treasurer, Paul Wegmann at 10998 Holly Rd. Bloomington, WI 53804. Be sure to make checks out to the West Grant Lions Club. The deadline for making money donations is Monday, Dec. 2. If you have any nonperishable food items (especially canned goods) please bring them to one of the collection locations which will be announced at a later date. Also please mark the bags or boxes as being for the West Grant Lions Operation Santa Claus. Sometimes there are other organizations or classes who are gathering food items for a different project. The Lions Club cannot distribute home canned foods or home baked items or clothing.

Masses intentions for loved ones to be said during 2025 at St. Mary's and St. John's Churches may be scheduled during November and December. The stipend is $20.00 per Mass. To schedule Masses, you may send a note listing possible Mass dates and the name of the person(s) for the intentions. You may also call St. Mary's Parish Office (608-994-2526) from 8:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Monday-Friday to schedule Mass intentions.

We will remember loved ones who have died this past year at the Masses on Sunday, November 3 at St. Mary's Church, Bloomington. If you would like to have your loved one remembered, please contact the St. Mary's Parish office (608-994-2526).

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the St. Mary School Pizza and Bulb Fundraiser. A special thank you to Patsy White and Deb Van Bogaert for their help and to Catholic Financial Life Chapter #15 for generously donating $1,000.00 in matching funds.

The Ladies Night Out committee would like to thank all the gals and businesses that contributed to the success of our evening. Thank you to the ladies who attended and helped make the evening a fun time for all. - Ione, Alysa, Jen and Mary Jo.

It’s harvest time again which means St. Mary’s Harvest Fund has started. We are very gratefully to the families who have given early donations totaling $670.00 toward our goal of $50,000.00. We hope all of our parish members will be able to share their bounty and blessings to help with fall and winter expenses for the parish. We appreciate all contributions large or small and thank the many generous parishioners for their continued support.

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