St.Joan of Arc Parish

This review is SOLELY for the parish office. Trying to obtain a baptism certificate was an aweful experience. I was treated like a nuisance, the tone of her voice, and rude words were so frustrating, all I could think of was that I hope she’s not the only one to answer the phones, because if I was a prospective parishioner, or someone seeking the church for knowledge about Faith, I would be so turned off and push away. As someone who is potentially the first person someone may talk to in your parish, I would think it would be important to be speak kindly, and be as helpful as possible without making the person on the other end feel like they are wasting your time. I was told it would be a mandatory $ 10 «donation» to have the certificate made, and I said OK, weird, my home church never asked for that, and she said «well we do. All parishes are different» and I said well OK then thank you for being so kind and knowledgeable have a good day.” At that point I was frustrated and in disbelief. My fiancé went in to pick up his certificate in person and the lady told him «your lucky I did this this morning and not later on today, your fiancé should to learn to be nice» YES she said that to him. She said that will be $ 10 donation please, and he, also upset at what she just said regarding me, asked her for a receipt. She said they didn’t have receipts, and he said we’ll then it isn’t a donation, its a fee, so she grumble and came up with something to give him showing he made a forced contribution for his baptism paperwork. All in all, why would anyone want to deal with that type of behavior from someone representing their parish. I hope this review can being light to a situation that shouldn’t have happened, and hopefully doesn’t happen again.

I always come here on Sundays, priests are really entertaining esp. during sermon. I’m sorry but I have to say something not nice even if it’s a church. The restroom smells all the way to the seats & they even have double doors. So sorry, God pls. forgive me!!!

I’ve been on both sides of the church– have been involved with CCD and EDGE, attend weekday mass as well as Saturday/​Sunday full mass. I have 2 issues with weekend mass; the parishioners who do the readings are so across the board with their delivery (I think they should all have to go through an approval process… you’ll understand) I was raised that any speaker, other than the priest, should not call attention to themselves in the delivery, it should always be about the Word, not the exaggerated or extended, overly annunciated speaker. The speaker should be REQUIRED to speak clearly & understandable. It’s very disconcerting to attend mass hoping/​expecting to leave really with an understanding, a BETTER understanding, of the Lord’s passion, than when you arrived. I do fully understand these speakers are doing their part to contribute to the church, they are all volunteers. They likely have all gone through some training on their own time. I’m sorry to be critical of them, it’s not very Christian to be judgmental, but isn’t Unilocal a place to be honest?
St. Joan has gone through too many priests in the last 12 years, which saddens me. Families crave consistency, where you can build an honest relationship with the clergy. I don’t want a constant turn over. We get someone good, he stays a year or two, then is moved to another parish. We just lost Father Ian, a soft spoken but very personable, well spoken young priest, who has been replaced by Father Jayson. Father Jayson is great. Very clear, very lively, really makes you confident in what he’s saying. I’m very happy with the transition.
Lately a turn off has been how often the weekend mass homily has become asking for money. For Catholic Charities, for the diocese clergy retirement fund, the Bishop’s fund, to pay for the new Oakland Cathedral, etc. I feel it’s fine to «mention» the need but now spend 15 – 25 minutes harping, if people area going to donate, let them do so AFTER mass. LET“S HEAR MORE OF THE BIBLE MESSAGES AND LESS, «there’s an extra envelope in your pew, we have people waiting in the main vestibule to take your donations,» and so on. We all want to give what we can but I also want to get something out of the hour I spend AT MASS not a collection agency. I know it’s a necessary evil of the Catholic Church… still, give me more religion. Please.
If you can ever make it to weekday mass, DO GO!!! So to the point, a real message and communion in about 35 minutes. Very clear, very meaningful. You can feel the message and live it throughout your day. I just wish it wasn’t always Father Ray and the very animated man (can’t think of his name, not an ordained priest) Father Ray turns it over to at least every other week— he’s very long winded and goes off on a tangent— from gardening to his personal travels, etc. Nice man, clearly speaks but just drags it out. I’m not in favor of an unordained person taking over the homily, ever. Yes, I’m a little old school. Yes, I will continue to call St. Joan my home parish. It’s in my neighborhood.
I’ll have to go and ask forgiveness after writing this but it’s honest. Honestly.
People are friendly enough, there are «retreats» that are wonderful, both my children have had their First Communion and Confirmation here. We are rooted.

Okay, if anyone from St. Joan’s reads this, please know that this is my alias. Haha.
I maybe bias because I have grown up going to St. Joan’s since I was in kindergarten (I am 21 now). And I have been super involved in church. And I kind of worked there. I haven’t gone regularly for 3 years now because I am in college. I say that St. Joan’s spoiled me. I don’t like going to other churches because St. Joan’s is seriously the best.
I love love love St. Joan’s. Everyone is super friendly (and funny!). You can literally just talk to anybody. Everyone is really helpful too.
I guess I can review my experience for youth group. I did CCD K-​8^th grade (back when Edge didn’t exist). I loved my CCD teachers. I always had fun and it was a great way to get to know people from my school that I never really talked to. I did LIGHT in high school. Loved it so much that I ended up doing SALT (the high school leadership team). During this time was when I fell in love with my faith. High school was the BEST. They would bring Nelson or Steve to come and sing and talk to us. They were amazing! There were also workshops and we even went to LA AND Ohio for a Catholic Conference. I also did the musicals, which was a ton of fun. It was a lot of hard work and was pretty much my only social life, but I am so glad I did it. Confirmation classes were great (if you get a good teacher). I also did VBS (as a camper and a counselor), and I always have fun.
If you were thinking of having your child go into ANY group at St. Joan’s, you will not regret it. I learned a lot about my faith but mostly about my faith.
LOVE YOU GUYS!!! (:

This is the church I usually choose to drive to from home. After being to a few other churches in the area I didn’t mind this 30 minute drive. The songs sound beautiful and I love when children masses. It also helped that the first time visiting the church the woman that sat to me took time to converse with me since we were both alone.

My wife and I recently moved to San Ramon and decided to start attending St Joan of Arc as our Parish. I will probably refine this review as we gain more experience with the church.
We arranged for Fr. Ian Mendoza (who we didn’t know was Filipino) to do our house blessing on the day we moved in, something that made us feel really good about sleeping in our new place. He’s a very young and nice priest, my wife said that he wanted to continue chatting on the phone when she scheduled the blessing! Nice guy
I am a little puzzled why there isn’t an evening mass on Sundays (last mass is at Noon), but maybe the parish is small enough that they can’t support that many masses. From what I can tell, there are only two priests. Regardless, we attended the 10:30am mass (full and with a choir) and Noon (full no choir). Each mass was standard fair but we were impressed with the nice view from the main window of the church as well as the «prayer book» that they have in the corner.
We submitted a «pre-​registration» form that will result in us being invited to a new parishoner meeting at the end of the month. So far we are impressed with what have seen of the ministries and with how welcoming they are of new members. We are both excited to learn more about this parish.