The only Redemptorist church west of the Mississippi having the distinction of being named after Our Lady of Perpetual Help, we held an unofficial triduum of services from Saturday evening, June 25 to Tuesday, June 28. Her shrine altar was decorated and one of our many icons was placed on an adorned tripod in the center aisle at the base of the sanctuary for viewing and veneration.

Being a Sunday in Ordinary Time, as our patroness, we were permitted to celebrate Our Lady at our five weekend liturgies. The celebrants preached eloquently on the meaning of the Icon for our parish, our people and us.

On the actual feast day on, she again was the center of attention in our  worship. On Tuesday, the traditional day of novena devotions, we
had over 70 people in attendance.

We have consistently good attendance at our weekly novena devotions throughout the year and hear many confessions. Without much promotion, we are kept busy in the confessional. This is both a blessing and a workout. During a week’s time we have approximately five to seven hours of weekday confessions and three hours of weekend confessions. We’re not just sitting there!  We generally are kept busy during the weekday and weekend scheduled confession times. We also have on-call confessions in the rectory, often frequented by area priests.

We’ve had much activity, both materially and socially, during the past year. Last fall we did deferred maintenance on the church roof and gutters. Everyone was in awe of the workers who climbed the heights by ladders and lifts to do the work. The result is a secure roof and new gutters all around. The front of the rectory under the windows has been completely re-landscaped and Br. Bill Cloughley is refinishing the weather beaten rectory front doors back to their pristine oak grain. Community members and visitors alike are enjoying our refurbished and freshened courtyard. All the old broken concrete has been replaced by a new patio slab and plenty of green grass and flowers.

The common bathrooms and showers in the rectory are also receiving some new water pipes, and sink, shower and bath fixtures. A feasibility study is underway to put a new roof on the Social Service Center (former convent). To that end, our end of the province fundraising project has so far raised $55,000.

During spring break we were visited by the University of Notre Dame Glee Club. Their offer to sing in our church was requested through the family of our church builder, William Reintjes. His great-grandson and family live here in Kansas City, and they wished to have them sing in the beautiful historic church their ancestor built. Generations of the Reintjes family were in attendance and made provisions for all of the Glee Club members to stay in various homes throughout Kansas City. Their performance was enjoyed by a large crowd made up of parishioners, guests and Notre Dame alumni.

They even humored the pastor by performing “Jingle Bells,” which is a traditional part of their on-campus Christmas performance, and which he had attended back in 1989 and still has the souvenir “jingle bell” they hand out to the audience to jingle along!

We just had our first Festival/Homecoming/Picnic in three years on our north lawn. We began with 5 p.m. Mass inside the church. Then we spilled out into the very sunny, warm evening. We had a good crowd and they enjoyed the food, fellowship, raffle drawings, and music from a live band called the “Instamatics,” (remember the camera?) who played ‘70s and ‘80s music. All generations seemed to enjoy it.



During the first half of this year our parish participated in a Kansas City-St. Joseph diocesan deanery review commissioned by the diocese for the purpose of evaluating parishes. In our deanery it was concluded that we would remain a stand-alone parish because of our stability and strengths in the important areas of parish andsacramental services, finances, outreach and potential sharing of office and staff personnel.

In addition, Redemptorist Social Services and Cristo Rey High School are two additional strengths associated with us on our campus. Two neighboring parishes we help out at have been asked to merge under one pastor with services continuing at both, so it seems we will continue to offer our assistance to them. We also celebrate about 50 weddings a year, providing marriage preparation in cooperation with diocesan preparation programs in the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese and the Kansas City Diocese in Kansas.

We and other midtown Catholic parishes share a consolidated Catholic grade school: Our Lady of Hope, a K-8 school located on the campus of Guardian Angels Parish. Catholic schools in the state of Missouri have just been given a game-changing program of scholarships to families wishing to send their children to private schools.

The money will be generated by Missouri state tax credits on Missouri state income taxes. The scholarships are substantial and the requirements are within reach of most families. This will permit families who may never have been able to afford tuition to send their children to Catholic schools. The diocese is one of the entities selected by the state to distribute these scholarships.

Cristo Rey High School, in its sixteenth year of operation on our campus, bid farewell to its third president, John O’Connor. After conducting a nationwide search, the Board of Directors recommended Claudia Meyer as the new president to the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, the sponsors of the school. Claudia is a Latina and former principal of the Guadalupe Charter School here in Kansas City.

In other activities, the parish had Synodal listening sessions in preparation for the 2023 Synod, and a solid group of RCIA candidates entered the Church at the Easter Vigil. We also hosted Confirmation for 70 confirmandi from ours and neighboring parishes. Before the ceremony, our Redemptorist community enjoyed hosting Bishop James Vann Johnston for supper. He seems to be very fond of our cook’s meals! Since we first started inviting him several years ago, he has never turned down an invitation! Plus, he’s a very good conversationalist.



Our Redemptorist community participated in all the zoom meetings and discussions for the upcoming General Chapter. We just participated in a “get acquainted zoom session” with the confreres of La Santissima Trinidad community in Puebla, Mexico.

Every two months we host Kansas City young adults for an hour of Eucharistic Adoration, confessions and fellowship afterwards. This event consistently draws about 200 young adults each time. Our own parish young adult efforts continue, but we lost our young adult faith formation director to Hallmark cards. We lost our first young adult leader some years back to love and marriage! To paraphrase Hallmark’s old promotion: we “cared enough to send the very best!” So we’re searching again.

Life is so daily!