News

Jul 24, 2025

Greetings,

We are about to celebrate the 97th anniversary of the founding of our parish. The first Mass celebrated by the parish was in August of 1928 in Rankin School, which was demolished just this year. At the time, Monsignor Zwisler lived in a room at St. Thomas Hospital which also met with the wrecking ball just this past year.

For a number of years, some of your fellow parishioners have been developing a Parish Summer Festival. They have been experimenting so that when we reach our 100th anniversary, nothing needs to be invented from scratch! We will have had a decade of trying out things to see what works and what will be the best way to celebrate our 100 years of blessings and service.

Saturday, August 2 is the main event. We will celebrate the 4:30pm Mass. At the end of which, we will process with the St. Sebastian statue down to the Festival Grounds. At which time, we will honor our patron and begin the games and start serving the food.

The two nights before will be ticketed events. On Thursday is a new event: The Lady’s Night Out. Appetizers, Wine and  Purse Bingo will be featured. We must have needed a Lady’s Night because you have been snatching up the tickets. It is hoped that this event will morph into something longer lasting and help encourage our women to join other organizations in the parish.

Friday is the Annual Bourbon Tasting and Pig Roast. Last I heard, there were only a handful of tickets left for this event. I so look forward to this day. The doors may not open until the evening, but we in the rectory get to smell the roasting all  day long.

I am looking forward to seeing you at these events as we honor our Patron Saint and give thanks to God for His many blessings. Saint Sebastian, pray for us!

IN OTHER NEWS:

SEMINARIANS: Time is winding down for the presence at the parish of our seminarians. Soon they will be returning to studies at St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe. Mr. Sean Homcy will be wrapping up his internship and Messrs. John Scantling and Connor Trout will finish their employment at the parish.

Over this past summer, Mr. Christopher Villarreal resided and worked at St. Francis de Sales (along with Mr. Simon Park who lived with us last summer). John and Christopher are members of this parish, and they will be joined by Mr. Gabriel Kasper, also of this parish, as he bands together with the other men of the diocese, discerning a vocation to the priesthood. Please keep them in your prayers.

As you might imagine, one cannot earn a large nest egg over the summer and seminarians are not permitted to work during the school year. It would not be inappropriate to make a financial gift to the seminarians, either directly, or through the Seminarian Fund in the St. Sebastian Parish Foundation to show your appreciation of their work here and their discernment to service, to us and to the Diocese of Cleveland.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck