Aug 05, 2026

Greetings,

This week brings to an end all of our Summer Internships here at St. Sebastian Parish. Mary Sboray and Abigail Hassenzahl worked here throughout the summer through a grant by the Lilly Foundation and coordinated by the Mary Mother of the Good Shepherd Institute run by the Diocese of Cleveland. It is designed to help young persons discover career opportunities within the Church. We had a few of our own young parishioners also serve as interns at other parishes in the diocese. If you or your son or daughter would be interested in this summer program, keep an eye out for more details as we approach the next period of applications.

Also coming to an end is the internship of seminarian Johannes Benninghoff. This past Monday, he had his evaluation in which the parish clergy, staff and various members of the parish were being interviewed by the seminary to gauge how well Johannes fulfilled his ministry and in what areas he and the diocese might benefit with further exposure or insights.

That also means that the presence of the other seminarians here this summer will soon be coming to an end. John Scantling, Gabriel Kasper (seminarians from this parish, along with Christopher Villarreal who lived at another parish this summer) and Stephen Vavro will soon be returning to the seminary to resume their studies. It has been such a pleasure having them here over the summer, and it will take some getting used to them no longer being here! Fr. Joseph and I will have to fight over who gets to empty the dishwasher now.

Please keep these young persons looking to serve the Church in your prayers and pray for an increase in those seeking out religious vocations and other ways to be of service. Thank you, interns and summer residents for your presence, prayers and all that you helped do over the summer!

IN OTHER NEWS:

THANK YOU!: Our annual Summer Festival, which this year marked the 98th anniversary of the founding of our parish, was absolutely wonderful, and I want to thank everyone on the committee and all of our volunteers for their hard work, dedication and determination! This was a wonderful buildup to our centenary celebration. There is only one more practice year left! Also, thank you to everybody who participated in the various events and made our anniversary a true celebration.

PARISH OFFICE UPDATE: I’m happy to announce we have hired Angela Morabito-Conrad to replace Cathy Sivec as our Parish Office Manager. She will be training with Cathy over the next few weeks with a start date at the end of August. We welcome her to her new role and wish Cathy well as she takes on her new role as Director of our Center for Early Learning.

TOR: The next Theology on the Rocks is Monday, August 17th with “A Taste of Alpha.” This might be a good one to bring a friend who is lax in the faith or may be searching and considering the Catholic Church. More information can be found on page 10 of the bulletin or the TOR Facebook Page.

CLARINET: This past week, there was a new stop added to our organ. Thanks to a gift to the music program, we were
able to add a clarinet stop to the array of sounds on our organ. What a blessing.

PSR: Registration for Parish School of Religion is now open. See page 6 in the bulletin for more details.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck