Pastor’s Letter: October 5, 2025

Pastor’s Letter: October 5, 2025

3 Oct 2025 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

Blessings and peace to you all this day! As we walk through our annual update this weekend, I am joyful to say we had a fantastic year! As you may know, our Diocese follows the fiscal calendar that many businesses use, so our information shared here is for July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025. This year, I have changed up the format a bit to highlight some different joys and blessings to share. Anyone who would like to know more in-depth financial information is welcome to talk with me, our trustees, and/or any of our finance council members. I especially want to thank our finance council—we are so blessed with these great people! The finance council meets monthly and reviews our annual budget and current finances, advises on large projects, consistently endorses parish support for our school and our students, as well as holding regular discussions for our long-range planning. No doubt, our parish is in such strong shape because of your generosity and the sound guidance of our finance council! If you ever have questions or would like to just say a word of thanks, here are the current members of our finance council:  Trustees: Steve Knecht and Allyson Schneider; Finance Council Members: Tony Beiermann, Nick DeMoss, Katie Jenkins, Dan Kelly, Dan Myers, Don Schwegel, Pat Smarjesse, Bob Wille, and Brian Winschel.

How is the parish doing? We are growing and thriving! When we undertook the parish directory project (coming soon), it was an opportunity to review the parish roster and make sure it was up to date (we are currently at 1366 households). We also added many new members this last year! Joyfully, our overall Mass attendance rose this past year, averaging about 1400 each weekend—our highest attendance since 2019. We welcome and are thankful for our 53 new households who joined us over the last year—welcome to the St. Philomena Parish Family! Our Sacramental life continues to be strong – with almost twice as many baptisms as the number of funerals – a great sign of growth! I’m happy to highlight 14 people who made the faith journey through OCIA, including six School parents. We also had three school students from different faith backgrounds who decided to join the Catholic Church!

How about our school? What does enrollment look like? Where are we with tuition assistance? Our school continues to be a great place for our children to grow! Every day, we focus on fostering an encounter with Christ for our students. We have an amazing, dedicated, loving staff that truly cares for our young people and their development. It is a joy to work with a school that is living consistently with the mission of the Church! Our enrollment increased by one student this year for a total of 516 young people PK-8^th grade—we continue to enjoy hallways and classrooms that are full of growth and life.

As I have shared before, our parish has been committed to supporting our families—last year 126 students received a total of $293,413.82 in tuition assistance. This generosity ensures that our classrooms remain full and our school stable and strong! It is a true joy we can gift so many students with such a firm foundation for their faith and for their lives. Many of our students have gone on to attend Peoria Notre Dame HS, currently our 122 students from our parish are 25% of the student body there!

How about school security? I am happy to say that Mr. Dippold has been incredible diligent and forward thinking when it comes to safety and security. Out of all the schools I have worked with, we have by far the most procedures in place and have continued to strengthen our protocols in this last year. To protect the integrity of our plans, we don’t share the details publicly. However, I can say we have had consultation with outside experts in safety and law enforcement, regular trainings (including an all staff safety training day before school started), common language and procedures that all staff are aware of, periodic drills, as well as coordinated planning with other area schools. We certainly take safety seriously and will continue to work hard to stay strong and secure.

How are the finances? Thankfully, we are in great shape when it comes to the parish finances.  If you look over the handout shared during weekend Masses, you will see that regular Sunday giving increased. Our school income decreased with the loss of the Invest in Kids Scholarship Program, as well as a modest decrease in wills/memorials this past year. Overall, we finished about $500K in the black, allowing us to continue supporting our school and ministries, as well as planning to tackle a few larger projects to keep our campus beautiful and buildings in good shape for years to come. We were able to launch a couple of new ministries this past year and strengthen what we have been offering: Men of St. Joseph to assist men in growing as husbands and fathers, Pearls of Hope infertility support group, as well as laying groundwork for a marriage enrichment ministry for younger couples—all good works in progress!

How did the Annual Diocesan Appeal go last year? Truly, we had a best response in anyone’s memory. According to the latest report from the Diocese, we exceeded our goal by more than $38K, meaning we received back that amount to be used here at the parish. With the advice of our finance council, we used that money toward our tuition assistance total.

How are our Endowments doing? Thankfully, our endowments are strong and steadily growing.  Our parish endowment just moved past $1.5M, the threshold goal which enables us to begin using the earnings for parish needs and projects.  School Endowment A is our oldest endowment—it currently sits around $3M and is specified for school use. It has a limit of 5% usage each year for school related expenses—the last couple of years our finance council has designated Endowment A earnings for tuition assistance needs. Endowment B is unrestricted and can be used in any amount for school related expenses such as building repairs, capital projects, etc. It currently sits at $1.9M. Did you know that Endowment A was started in 1985 with $25—it certainly has grown!

How about those summer projects? As I mentioned in the bulletin several weeks ago, we had a busy and productive summer! I am thankful to say we were able to complete the projects Fr. David had laid out as things he felt needed attention. We also started working on replacing our flat roof sections on our school, which are past their life expectancy. Although some of these projects are not that noticeable on a daily basis, they certainly help us keep our campus in top condition as we look to the future. One project which has been in the works for a few years was the replacement of our Church chiller. As some of you have commented, the new system is much more efficient and feels cooler. During my first year here, I kept all the settings in the church the same as what Fr. David had set. Because the new system is working so well, I actually have been able to raise the temperature setting, hopefully leading some energy savings for us in the future.

Father, do you feel settled in now after your first year? Yes—it has been a wonderful and joy-filled first year here. I’ve been so thankful for our many strengths, especially our good and generous people. I am continually edified by the ways people serve one another as a true family. I look forward to many more grace-filled years ahead! Know of my gratitude for everyone here—it truly is a great joy to serve as your pastor. Sending you all my blessing for this week ahead!

In Christ,
Fr. Luke