The annual "Christmas Club" where you can donate money for gifts for the staff has begun. Donations may be left at the parish office or school.

Share the gift of life by donating blood. The Red Cross will be holding a blood drive at St. Mary School in Bloomington on November 25 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

The council now has 180 Form 100s in our hands. The Form 100s were needed for the council to be able to start the Member Transfer Process. The member transfer will start immediately in hopes to be completed by January 1, 2025. The council gave out $300 Charity Checks to two brother knights with health conditions. Council 4416 does not hold meetings during the holidays. The next council meeting will be on Jan. 21, 2025 in St. Charles’ School Computer Lab in Cassville at 7:30 p.m.

Operation Santa Claus in the River Ridge area is sponsored by the West Grant Lions Club to help those families and individuals in need to have a Merry Christmas. The club serves the Bagley, Bloomington, Glen Haven, Mt. Hope and Patch Grove areas. The members of the West Grant Lions Club have already been checking the five communities and surrounding areas served by the club for people in need. This has been necessary to provide enough time for the proper ordering of food items and other needed items. If a new situation develops that the club should know about, please contact Lion Mike Farrell at 9143 Kussmaul Rd., Mt. Hope, WI 53816. His phone number is: 608-988-4527. Money donations which are needed for the purchase of food items may be mailed to the West Grant Lions Club Treasurer, Paul Wegmann at 10998 Holly Rd. Bloomington, WI 53804. Be sure to make checks out to the West Grant Lions Club. The deadline for making money donations is Monday, Dec. 2. If you have any nonperishable food items (especially canned goods) please bring them to one of the collection locations which will be announced at a later date. Also please mark the bags or boxes as being for the West Grant Lions Operation Santa Claus. Sometimes there are other organizations or classes who are gathering food items for a different project. The Lions Club cannot distribute home canned foods or home baked items or clothing.

Masses intentions for loved ones to be said during 2025 at St. Mary's and St. John's Churches may be scheduled during November and December. The stipend is $20.00 per Mass. To schedule Masses, you may send a note listing possible Mass dates and the name of the person(s) for the intentions. You may also call St. Mary's Parish Office (608-994-2526) from 8:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Monday-Friday to schedule Mass intentions.

We will remember loved ones who have died this past year at the Masses on Sunday, November 3 at St. Mary's Church, Bloomington. If you would like to have your loved one remembered, please contact the St. Mary's Parish office (608-994-2526).

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the St. Mary School Pizza and Bulb Fundraiser. A special thank you to Patsy White and Deb Van Bogaert for their help and to Catholic Financial Life Chapter #15 for generously donating $1,000.00 in matching funds.

The Ladies Night Out committee would like to thank all the gals and businesses that contributed to the success of our evening. Thank you to the ladies who attended and helped make the evening a fun time for all. - Ione, Alysa, Jen and Mary Jo.

It’s harvest time again which means St. Mary’s Harvest Fund has started. We are very gratefully to the families who have given early donations totaling $670.00 toward our goal of $50,000.00. We hope all of our parish members will be able to share their bounty and blessings to help with fall and winter expenses for the parish. We appreciate all contributions large or small and thank the many generous parishioners for their continued support.

October is traditionally devoted to the Holy Rosary! Legend has it that St. Dominic received the Rosary from Our Lady after he had been praying and doing penance for his lack of success in combatting the Albigensian heresy; in his vision, Mary gave Dominic the Rosary as a spiritual weapon and encouraged him to preach its use to others. The Mysteries of the Rosary are rooted in Scripture and offer us a summary of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we pray the Rosary, we join Mary in the contemplation of these Mysteries and ask her to unite and conform us to her Son as we ponder His Paschal Mystery. This month, consider adding a Rosary to your daily prayer routine! The Joyful Mysteries are typically prayed on Monday and Saturday, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesday and Friday, the Luminous Mysteries on Thursday, and the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesday and Sunday, but the faithful are welcome to pray any Mysteries at any time. If you have a longer morning and evening commute, that can be a good time to get in a Rosary! And if a full Rosary each day feels like too much, try praying one Decade a day, perhaps accompanying it with a meditation on the corresponding Scripture passage to help you pray the Mystery more deeply. A guide to the Rosary can be found here: https://www.usccb.org/how-to-pray-the-rosary "May Mary help us to welcome within ourselves the grace emanating from these Mysteries, so that through us we can 'water' society, beginning with our daily relationships, and purifying them from so many negative forces, thus opening them to the newness of God. The Rosary, when it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanical and superficial but profoundly, it brings, in fact, peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the center of each 'Hail Mary'." -Pope Benedict XVI