Feb 27, 2026

Greetings,

Next weekend kicks off our Parish Lenten Mission!  Father Nathan Cromly, president of the St. John Institute, will lead us this year beginning on Sunday, March 8 at 7pm and continuing for the next two nights.  His focus in his ministry is helping Catholics to, “Dare to do great things for Christ.”  This popular Catholic, motivational speaker is all over the Catholic internet, publishes books and gives retreats.  Fr. Cromly’s appearance at St. Sebastian Parish is free and is certainly open to the public.  His focus tends to be on families, married couples and professionals, so there should be a little bit of something for everybody.  

IN OTHER NEWS:

ATTENTION LORD OF THE RINGS FANS:  Fr. Michael Ward from Oxford University will be speaking on, “Peak Middle Earth: Why Mount Doom Is Not the Climax of Lord of the Rings.”  This event will take place in Zwisler Hall on Sunday, March 15 at 2pm. It is free and open to the public.  

BISHOP TO COME AND SPEAK AT ST. SEBASTIAN:  West Side Catholic Couples is sponsoring a retreat day for couples on Saturday, April 11. The speakers for that day are the Most Reverend Edward Malesic, Bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland and John and Teresa Peach.  Pre-registration is a must.  Please see elsewhere in the bulletin, call the rectory or head to the St. Sebastian Parish website under Community Partnerships under the “Church” tab and click on West Side Catholic Couples.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?  Going into last weekend, our sound system began to malfunction.  The sound company with which we work, and Mr. Wayne Johnson of our parish, patched something together to see us through until new equipment is delivered.  But that meant some things did not work and other things did not work optimally.  There was some feedback, some breaks and volume drops.  I especially desire to acknowledge our homebound who count on our live streaming.  That was one of the things that was not working at all and, unless you could read lips, we had no way of telling you that we knew it wasn’t working and to apologize for the occurrence.  Hopefully, by the time that you are reading this, things should have returned to normal.

CONGRATULATIONS:  On Friday, February 20, two of our parishioners who are in the seminary, Mr. Christopher Villarreal and Mr. John Scantling were installed as Acolytes at the seminary.  Also in their class was Mr. Connor Trout who you may recall spent some time with us and served at our altar.  Please keep them in your prayers. I would also like to note the wonderful turn out of St. Sebastian parishioners who were there to support them.  That was pretty awesome!  What a way to support and build up a culture of vocations.  

OCIA:  Those who attended the 9am Sunday Mass last week saw the 19 people who we were sending to Cleveland to be enrolled by the Bishop as they make their final preparations for invitation into the Catholic Church.  They met in the Cleveland Public Auditorium with the hundreds of other catechumens and candidates from the eight counties of our diocese.  For some reason, the numbers of those coming into the Church in our diocese and across the nations have increased dramatically.  Something great is going on.  Please say a prayer for our candidates and catechumens.  Congratulations!

DIOCSEAN EVENING OF CONFESSION:  Wednesday, March 4 from 5-8pm.

BREAK A LEG:  Our Parish School students will be performing “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” this weekend.  Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on this production!  Break a leg cast and crew.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck