Hello, St. Clement parishioners and friends!
We appreciate the feedback we’ve gotten on the newsletter so far and are working on improving it week by week. We received a suggestion to include a list of people for whom we could be praying, such as the sick and suffering of our parish. If you’d like to add a name to the prayer list (yours or someone else’s with their permission), please email that info to Bonnie at music@stcbixby.org.
📣 Announcements
- Pack your tools and come and join us in fall cleaning to clean up our parish grounds this Saturday at 8:00 am!
- There are envelopes on the table in the church entryway for holiday meal certificates. Outreach will appreciate your donations.
- The Women's Guild Christmas Jar is at the back of the Church until mid-December. Please put your loose change or bills in the jar to help a family at Christmas. Thank you for your generosity!
- Envelopes for donations to Outreach Thanksgiving and Christmas meals are also available.
- Friday 1 Nov is the Solemnity of All Saints. It is a Holy Day of Obligation. Masses will be at 8:30am & 6:00pm in English and 7:30pm in Spanish.
- For those who subscribe to The Word Among Us, your November issues are in your folders on the table in the entryway of the church.
- Saturday 2 Nov is the Memorial for All Souls. There will be Mass at 8:30am Saturday morning in English and 12:00pm in Spanish. It is NOT a Holy Day of Obligation. Set your clocks BACK an hour that night before going to bed since Daylight Savings Time ends overnight! ⏰
- Mark your calendars for a day of celebration for our parish patronal day on Saturday 23 Nov, the feast of St. Clement of Rome! ⚓️ Come at noon for a bilingual Mass and stay for a potluck afterward. Bishop Konderla will be joining us! Next week we’ll share a sign-up/RSVP form.
Disciple Maker Index opens this coming Wednesday!
As you may have already heard, our parish will soon participate in the Disciple Maker Index. The DMI is designed to invite parishioners to reflect on their journey of discipleship, enable parish leadership to make data-driven decisions, and help parishioners grow in their faith. The 10–15 minute survey can be accessed through an online link starting Wednesday, October 30th. It will ask you to reflect on your own spiritual growth and enable you to provide your perspective on our parish’s efforts to help you grow in relationship with Christ. All responses will be confidential; the parish will only receive information about the community as a whole. Paper surveys will also be available for those who do not have the ability to complete the survey online. Together, we will identify our strengths and opportunities in greater detail as we strive to grow in missionary discipleship. Please pray for this intention and for the growth and protection of our parish. Starting Wednesday you can access the survey via this link or by using this QR code.
Finance Council introductions
This week we introduce the Finance Council to our newsletter subscribers. The Finance Council supports the pastor in stewarding the temporal goods of the parish by offering input on financial and related matters affecting the parish.
Chris Briscoe and his wife Jackie are the parents of two boys and three girls ages 28 to 21. Jackie works for St. Francis and Chris for Bank of America. Chris & Jackie have been at St. Clement since 2017. In addition to his Finance Council service, Chris is a member of the Knights of Columbus and volunteers as a catechist. He and Jackie love Jesus Christ and growing in their Catholic faith.
Tom DeLorbe has been a registered parishioner at St. Clement since 2017 and has been on the Finance Council for the past few years. He is a self-described girl dad, grandpa, and car collector.
Nick Hoffmann, a lifelong Catholic, has lived in Oklahoma for over 50 years and has been a member of St. Clement for over 25 years. He’s taught religious education at St Clement for 12 years and is a 3rd degree Knight of Columbus. He also served on Parish Council for five years. Nick has been a financial advisor for 37 years serving the Bixby and Tulsa communities as well as many other states. He and Shannon, his wife of 27 years, have two sons.
Linda Hyland and her husband George have been married for 40 years and parishioners of St. Clement since 1987. Linda is a cantor, and both are members of the choir. They have two sons and three grandchildren. Before retiring in 2023, Linda worked as procurement manager for a major defense contractor for 34 years. She now tends the family’s hobby farm, drawing upon her upbringing on a farm in northeast Kansas. Her hobbies include sewing, quilting, embroidery, and crafts.
JB Parsons and his wife Lois have been St. Clement parishioners for five years. They relocated here from Ponca City, where they raised their family and had long careers. They have five children and 12 grandchildren, ranging from 20 to three years old and living from coast to coast, although some live in Jenks. They enjoy spending time with the grandkids, traveling to new places, and volunteering. At St. Clement they help with the outreach ministry, bereavement dinners, counting collections, and grounds maintenance.
Finance Council members left to right: Tom DeLorbe, Linda Hyland, Chris Briscoe, and JB Parsons with Fr. Juan Grejada · not pictured: Nick Hoffmann
Looking ahead to November
The month of November is dedicated to the holy souls in purgatory. To begin this observance, we’ll start with Halloween on October 31st. Get some food for thought on Halloween’s origins and significance in this article. If that sparks an interest, check out related content by searching Halloween at WordonFire.org and Aleteia.org.
Throughout the month of November, our parish will once again have paper leaves on which people may write the names of their dearly departed loved ones to then hang from a tree set up near the baptismal font.
As part of our prayer for the souls who have passed from this life, we will introduce a new song, Go in Peace by Sarah Hart and Dwight Liles, at the Masses in English the first two weekends of November. The music plan also includes hymns traditionally associated with All Saints, All Souls, and the saints, as well as Saints and Beloved of God* by Dan Schutte, which speaks to saints of the past and present – including those among our loved ones – and their presence with us.
*Note that this recording contains an optional verse.
Youth Fall Fellowship Night
St. Clement Youth Group is growing each year! Last Wednesday we had our Fall Fellowship Night for grades 6th-12th. We had a total of 68 students attend (plus a few friends 😊). The evening was full of pizza, ice cream sundaes, painting pumpkins, fellowship & fun!
