June 1st, 2019 

Brothers and Sisters,

Our search for a Director of Sacred Music for our parish and school is completed. The search committee narrowed the pool of candidates to four finalists for interview and unanimously recommended one of them to me for the position. I am delighted to announce that Mr. Edward Atkinson is our new Director of Sacred Music beginning July 17, 2019. 

He brings with him some impressive credentials and experience. He is a graduate of the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, one of the top music schools in the country. He earned a Bachelors of Music in Organ Performance (2010) from the Townsend School of Music, Mercer University, a Performer’s Diploma in Vocal Performance (2015) and a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance (2017) from the Jacobs School of Music. For the past six years, he has been the Director of Sacred Music at two parishes in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

He and his wife, Maile, are expecting their first child any day now. Maile is a professional violinist. Please keep mother and child in your prayers. Edward plans on arriving around July 13th to set up the house and Maile and the little one will arrive soon after. His first weekend working in the parish will be July 21-22.

I am excited to work with Mr. Atkinson in the coming years at Christ the King. Edward is looking forward to meeting you all, and working towards making the music that serves the Mass as beautiful as possible.

At the same time I want to publicly thank Gus Pappelis for his many years of dedicated service to our parish and Judy Sherbo for her many years of dedicated service to the music program in our parish school. We wish them well and will miss them.

I also want to publically thank the members of our search committee, all of whom brought particular expertise and perspectives to the process: Sarah Brentano (Incoming Principal), Steve Day (Interim Principal), Doug Schneider (Director of Sacred Music, St. Joseph Parish, Salem), Will Becker (Chair of Pastoral Council) and Kathleen Cleary (Chair of Finance Council).

Let us pray for Edward, Maile and soon-to-be-born child, Gus, Judy and our parish and school music programs.

In Christ the King,

Msgr. John Cihak

Jesus Has a Plan for You!

Quo Vadis Days is a 3-day camp for young Catholic men to learn more about the priesthood, to deepen their faith, and to better discern God’s call in their lives. 

This year's camp will take place at Camp Howard, near beautiful Mt. Hood, on Mon, June 24th – Thu, June 27th. 

More info and registration information can be found here: http://qvdays.org/register/archdiocese-of-portland/

In our recent meeting of the Liturgy Team, we decided to bring back a beautiful tradition: the Corpus Christi Procession.

Planning has begun, and it is scheduled to take place at the end of the 10:30 a.m. Mass on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, June 23rd. The Corpus Christi procession has been a tradition for centuries, especially since the Eucharistic miracle of Bolsena, Italy, in the 13th Century. The procession is a spiritual experience of literally walking with the Lord Jesus, taking Him from the church out into the world.

Processions call to mind the passing of time and the direction of our lives, reminding us that we are on pilgrimage in this world, hopefully making our way to Heaven.