This weekend is a time to celebrate the studies and achievements of those who have completed their high school education.  Their families are proud and as they attend the Baccalaureate Celebration held Wednesday of Senior Week, they take the opportunity to affirm and celebrate each other. Their parents and friends have an opportunity to re-member—to put together the happenings of the past years that brought each of them to this point in their lives.  I always look forward to listening to the stories of significant events in the lives of our young people as the move forward to a future filled with hopes and dreams, and of sometimes apprehension of the unknown.

Several of you have asked how my retreat was, and I thought it was really a great time of prayer and insight into two very important signs of the current time: climate change, and diminishment of the church.  Part of the diminishment of the church is aging clergy.  Our retreat director, who is 86 years old shared a wonderful prayer that is filled with both wisdom and humor.  It is “A Seventeenth Century Nuns Prayer” and sounds like it could have been written today! I have now started to pray it daily.

It’s that time of year!  Don’t you just love it?  Spring is in the air.  It seems like the leaves have popped out overnight and gone is the winter that would never end.  During spring and early summer, it is like someone put their foot on the accelerator and there is so much to do, but so little time to do it! It is hard to believe that our summer Mass schedule begins next weekend.  Masses are on Saturday at 4PM and Sunday at 9:30AM only!

We hold our annual parish retreat in January, and in the evaluations after each retreat we invite anyone in attendance to join our Retreat Planning Team for the following year.  Ten parishioners have met several times to begin planning our 2019 retreat.  I am encouraging everyone to put the dates in your calendar now so you are able to attend.  We will gather for supper at 6:00 P.M. on Friday January 25th and our first session -   get a good night’s rest at home and then re-gather on Saturday morning at 8:30 A.M. until 3:00 P.M.  for the remainder of our retreat.  The theme for the retreat is “Lighting our Spiritual Fire.”  I am sharing this with you now, so that you will set the time aside for your spiritual growth and development.  Take the time to grow your faith!  You are worth it.

I have many things to update you on so here goes: The case of the stolen doors is now official closed as far as the courts are concerned.  This came to an end Monday 30 April 2018.  The two people who took the doors are on probation for two years and are not allowed on our property.  Two of the bronze doors are gone to China, and four are with the Hopedale police.  We will see what condition they are in and move from there.  Originally through Architectural Salvage the doors were worth about $3,000.00 each, or a total of about $18,000.00.  However, what we will get for the four remaining doors will depend upon their condition.  This is very disappointing.  We do have an insurance claim, but it doesn’t look promising.  I will keep you posted.