Padre's Message

Click here to send an email to Fr. Gregory Golyzniak.
September 1, 2022

Dear parishioners and guests,

Jesus willingly embraced the cross, not only out of obedience to his Father's will, but out of a merciful love for each one of us in order to set us free from everything that would keep us from his love, truth, and goodness. Jesus knew that the cross was the Father's way for him to achieve victory over sin and death - and glory for our sake as well. He counted the cost and said 'yes' to his Father's will. If we want to share in his glory and victory, then we, too, must 'count the cost' and say 'yes' to his call to "take up our cross and follow him" as our Lord and Savior.
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Our faith formation program just started last weekend. I’m very grateful to all the teachers and parents for caring for their children’s growth in faith and helping them to become closer to the Lord. This year, I decided to implement one change. Previously, we focused on teaching our kids catechism and asked them to memorize a lot of things. In my opinion, that is not the best way to immerse our youngsters in the faith. This year, we will help them to understand the meaning of what we find in the scripture or catechism rather than focusing on memorization. I would like to have open discussions among the students and let them be open to think about what the teaching of the Church really means. For example, I will not ask them to memorize the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit or the Act of Contrition. Instead, I would like them to understand and explain the words they are saying, especially the Act of Contrition. When we teach about piety, the question for discussion will be about what it really means. How will the gift of piety affect your faith? It is almost like a classical teaching. Also, while children are in faith formation classes, we would like to offer some catechism classes with discussions for the parents. I encourage parents to take the advantage of this great way of learning our faith. Please ask Faith Formation Director Victoria Goetz about this new program.
 
I’m thinking of combining some grades together, so they will learn their faith in a combined curriculum. For example, third grade may be combined with fourth grade. We will see how that goes. Sacramental grades will remain unchanged.
 
We have over 250 students enrolled in our Sunday faith formation classes plus our school students.
 
Please pray for our faith formation students, parents and teachers. I’m very grateful for all of you.
 
With prayer,
Fr. Gregory
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About Fr. Gregory
Fr. Gregory Golyzniak was born and raised in Muszyna, Poland, the youngest of four children. He attended the world's largest Catholic Seminary in Tarnow, Poland, and was ordained in 1998. Father Gregory came to the United States and was assigned to the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, from 2002-2008. He then transferred to the Diocese of Colorado Springs, first serving as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Southgate. In 2013, Fr. Gregory was assigned to St. Peter Catholic Church in Monument. Fr. Gregory holds a PhD in Sacred Architecture with an emphasis on the Gothic architecture of the 11th-17th centuries.
UPON THIS ROCK
Continuing to build our future while honoring our legacy
We are grateful! Our Lord has blessed us with the growth of our church and parish community to serve all of us in our faith journey. He has also blessed us with our Peter the Rock Chapel and Parish Ministry Center (PMC) to further accommodate our parish’s needs for our ministries, faith formation, youth programs, adult education, social events and so much more. For the past two years, we have been enjoying these programs and activities since our official opening of our beautiful new facilities in January 2020.
We are so close to fulfilling our financial obligation to fully paying off our loan for the construction of our Chapel and PMC.
We kindly request that you prayerfully consider stretching your financial support for our facilities through our Upon This Rock campaign.

The “Upon This Rock” pledge card is located on our website petertherock.org. If you have any questions or wish to meet with Father Gregory or Campaign Coordinator Debby Dover, please stop by or call the office at 719-481-3511. We are happy to meet with you!