Dear Parishioners:
If you didn’t make it to the Parish Picnic last Sunday, you missed a great afternoon of fun! Our own Father Connors not only rode a 4 foot high unicycle but also juggled while doing so! It was a great day for our young Associate Pastor as his team also won the “Tug-of-War” against my much older and weaker team! There was a whole lot of fun for the couple of hundred parishioners who turned out for the festivities. We thank all those who worked so hard in preparing for the Picnic, working during the Picnic and cleaning up after the Picnic. In particular we thank our crack OLM Maintenance Staff led by Paul Anderson and Dave Belanger. We must also thank our Knights of
Columbus for sponsoring the hamburgers and hot dogs (we served around 400!) and cooking all afternoon. Also we thank the Galleshaw Family of Wright’s Chicken Farm for lending us their tent for the day. Many others cooked and brought food and we are grateful for all those who helped to make the Parish Picnic a great day for all! We must also thank God who provided good weather for almost the entire time of the Picnic. It didn’t rain until almost 4:00PM and then only for a short amount of time. God is good and we thank 
Him for providing us a beautiful day of faith, family and friendship!
On Monday we had a good turnout for Father Chris Maher’s talk on the meaning of Mercy. His talk was inspirational and provided much food for thought for us who worship at Our Lady of Mercy Church. Tuesday was a great night of music with our very talented Adult and Children’s Choirs singing some truly beautiful hymns and songs dedicated to Our Lady. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful choirs and also such talented musicians as our organist Henri St. Louis and our soloist Deirdre Donovan. On the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy, we had a solemn celebration at 7:30AM Mass and a festive gathering immediately afterwards. We give thanks to God for the blessings of our faith and our parish family and we continue to turn our patroness, Our Lady of Mercy, to intercede for us and our parish. May she continue to lay her mantle of love and protection upon us! Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us!
This weekend we take up our Annual Parish Collection at all Masses. This important collection helps us continue to provide for much needed capital improvements and maintenance projects. We are finalizing the installation of a new natural gas boiler for our Church. The cost of this project is nearly $40,000. It includes the removal of the old oil burner that is on it’s last legs and the installation of a new highly efficient natural gas burner. This change will bring us great savings on our heating bills as the cost of natural gas is far less than heating oil. We spent over $30,000 heating the Church last winter! We also are planning to replace the old oil burner in the Rectory but it is much more involved as it requires removal of asbestos material. Of course this means it will be more costly too. We are still reviewing the bids for this project and unfortunately will not be able to begin it until the spring.
I’ve received many compliments on the new landscaping around the parish and school. Mercy Park certainly looks beautiful and more inviting! We are grateful to OLM Parishioner John Pontarelli and Proscape Landscaping for their generous work on the project. Also we thank Kyle Alfred who provided the landscape design and oversaw the planting of the new flowers, bushes and trees. Our new parish sign is up and hard to miss. It comes complete with an accurate Mass schedule and is quite well lit at night. We hope to put the old parish sign, now newly refurbished, up very soon in another location. The new sign and new trees around Mercy Park are available to be memorialized. If any parishioner cares to dedicate them in memory of loved one, please contact me at the Parish Office. Once again I offer my sincere thanks for your generous response to the Annual Collection. Without your continued generosity OLM wouldn’t be such a beautiful and lively parish. God Bless. Go Pats!