As I have mentioned on several occasions, our parish -- St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Wildwood, Florida -- is growing at a remarkable rate, due largely to the growth of The Villages, the neighboring retirement community here in central Florida. The population of The Villages is, I believe, approaching 80,000 people and will house about 100,000 when it is entirely built out. Since all of the new growth lies within our parish's boundaries, we are faced with the real challenge of serving this rapidly expanding community.
Our present church building can seat only 600 people at the most; and, believe me, when this many people are in the church, nobody is comfortable. This seating limitation has brought about the necessity of scheduling nine Masses each weekend so we can accommodate those who wish to attend. And so, as you might expect, we are planning to build a new church, one that will seat two to three times as many people. This, of course, will cost us many millions of dollars. As a parish we are constantly finding new ways to support the fundraising effort, and I am hoping to do my part.
To further this end, I just became an Amazon Associate, an arrangement that enables me to earn dollars when someone buys a product on Amazon via a direct link found on this blog. I'm really not sure how much -- what percentage of the product's price -- goes to me, but I suspect it's not much. Every little bit will, however, help and I intend to give all the funds raised directly to the parish's building fund.
You will, therefore, notice that whenever I discuss a product that can be found on Amazon -- and on this blog that will almost always be a book -- I will include an appropriate image and a link to the product's page at Amazon.com. If you click on the image, and decide to purchase the product, I get the commission or, if you prefer, "kick-back" and our parish gets a few more cents for its building fund. It's a good deal all around since it costs you nothing more, but helps our growing parish. I've included an example at left: an excellent book by Dr. Scott Hahn for all you budding Scriptural scholars out there.
In support of this, in addition to the occasional reference to books that I include in blog postings, I intend to include some book recommendations at the bottom of the blog's right sidebar.
It will be interesting to see if this actually raises any money for the building fund. Pass the word.
Blessings...
The occasional, often ill-considered thoughts of a Roman Catholic permanent deacon who is ever grateful to God for his existence. Despite the strangeness we encounter in this life, all the suffering we witness and endure, being is good, so good I am sometimes unable to contain my joy. Deo gratias!
Although I am an ordained deacon of the Catholic Church, the opinions expressed in this blog are my personal opinions. In offering these personal opinions I am not acting as a representative of the Church or any Church organization.
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