Dear Parishioners:
Our Summer Seminarian, Nick Robenhymer, is settling in to his new assignment here at Our Lady of Mercy. It’s been a busy two weeks for him. He graduated from Providence College and then moved into OLM the next day. Last weekend he attended the our of state wedding of his brother and came back on Monday. This past week Fr. Connors is keeping him very busy around the parish. Nick is with us for about ten weeks and then he is off to First Theology at St. John’s Major Seminary in Boston. He joins our own native OLM son, Seminarian Brian Morris. Brian just completed his First Year Theology and has been assigned to St. Pius Parish in Westerly for the summer. I am confident he will do well under the tutelage of one of our outstanding priests in Providence, Fr. Ray Surani. Brian also goes to Lourdes, France this summer to work assisting the many sick and suffering pilgrims who flock to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. I ask you to please pray for these fine two young men who are discerning their call to priesthood. It isn’t always an easy thing to do in our post-modern world. They need your prayers and count on them. We need to also pray for more vocations to the priesthood for our Church. The Month of June is traditionally the month of ordinations to the priesthood in the Diocese of Providence. I was ordained on June 24, 1995 and Fr. Connors ordained on June 23, 2012. This June there is no ordination for the first time in the history of the Diocese. We have a few priests retiring after decades of faithful service this month
but there will be no new priests in June or any month during 2014!!Fr. Connors mentioned a few weeks ago that we should have twelve young men from OLM in the seminary studying for the priesthood and an equal amount of young women preparing for the religious life as a sister. Vocations to the priesthood and religious life are vital to the future of our Church and parish. I urge you to pray for vocations, encourage young men to be priests and young women to enter the religious life. Vocations are everyone’s business, why not make it yours.
This weekend we have sign-ups for our new Vacation Bible School. I am grateful to Fr. Connors who is working with OLM School 7th Grade Teacher Miss Bethany Crouteau and Mickey St. Jean, Directress of Religious Ed have been putting this together. We are all very excited about this great program which gathers the children of our parish and beyond for a week learning about Jesus and the Church in a very fun way. Seminarian Nick is to help us with the program but we are also in need of more volunteers. It is a great opportunity for high school and college age parishioners to have some fun while getting some service hours. If you would like to volunteer or know someone who might be interested, please contact Miss Croteau. Next week at the 10:30AM Mass we celebrate Mass for our 8th Graders who are finishing up at OLM School. They join us at Mass dressed in their graduation gowns and we shall acknowledge their great accomplishment and pray for their future. After the Mass the graduates gather for a luncheon where Academic Honors are awarded and they have a chance to sign their new yearbooks. The Graduation Ceremony for them takes place separately from the Mass on Wednesday, June 11th at 6:00PM.June looks to be a very busy month around OLM and probably in your own life. Lots of graduations and parties and a few celebrations of faith and family. We have our share and I hope you can join us for them. We have a special celebration scheduled on June 18th for Sister Jeanne to acknowledge her faithful service to our parish and school. We also have a Mass and Welcome Reception scheduled for our new OLM School Principal on Sunday, June 22nd. The Church calendar in June includes the great feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. Also we celebrate with great solemnity the Feast of Corpus Christi with its Eucharistic Procession at OLM and the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, patrons of our Diocese, ends the month on June 29th. June is busy indeed