Dear Parishioners:
What a great weekend we had last week. The weather was beautiful, all our Fathers were happy on Fathers’ Day and we had a grand send off for Fr. Connors. It was so nice to see nearly 20 of our great Altar Servers volunteer to serve the 10:30am Mass to honor Fr. Connors. Father is now off on retreat with the Benedictine Fathers at St. Vincent’s Archabbey in Latrobe, PA. Please pray for him. I offer my thanks to the many folks who worked so hard to make Fr. Connors Final Mass and Farewell Reception truly a wonderful occasion for him, his family and the parish. The Mass was beautiful, the music superb, the altar servers reverent, and the occasion was so joyful and faith-filled. The great crowd at Mercy Park to wish Fr. Connors farewell was well deserved. Thanks for making the day so memorable.
We now await the arrival of young Fr. Barrow as our newly appointed Associate Pastor at OLM. We thank Bishop Tobin for sending us Fr. Barrow. As you know there is an ever increasing shortage of priests and to get a second priest is rare luxury for parishes. So please be sure to thank Bishop Tobin and also please commit to praying for more priestly vocations for our diocese. Fr. Barrow is sure to be a great blessing for our parish. He is just 27 years old and full of zeal, energy and very eager to begin his priestly ministry here at OLM. 
He is a native of Warwick where he was educated at the public schools and graduated from Pilgrim High School. He grew up in St. Timothy Church in Warwick. After high school, Fr. Barrow entered Our Lady of Providence Seminary and graduated from Providence College with a B.A. in Philosophy. Bishop Tobin then assigned him for priestly formation and theological studies to the North American College in Rome. Father was ordained a priest in June 2015 and then returned to Rome for graduate studies. After completing an S.T.L Degree in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas this past spring, he was assigned to OLM. I am sure you will give him your usual warm welcome to OLM. Father Barrow begins his priestly service here on July 1st. Welcome Fr. Barrow!
Our energetic young Summer Seminarian, Billy Burdier, continues to impress all those 
he meets! This week he is working at our OLM Vacation Bible School. We have over 50 of our parish children signed-up and eager to learn more about their Catholic Faith this week. I am grateful to Michael LaChimia, our OLM Youth Activities Coordinator and Middle School Religion Teacher, for organizing this great event. Also I thank our many volunteers who help us out all week. If you see large groups of smiling children at OLM this week, now you know why!
I retuned last week after a retreat at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, California. Located just outside Los Angeles it is run by the Carmelite Sisters. These holy and happy sisters are not cloistered but have many apostolates in addition to the Retreat House. They administer homes for the aged and infirm, day care centers, elementary and high schools in California, Florida, Ohio and New Mexico. They were founded in 1921 by the Venerable Mother Lusita who was a wealthy Mexican widow who desired to start a religious community of
women. Fleeing the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico during the 1920s she fled to Los Angeles. The Retreat House is also the Mother House for the over 40 Sisters there. They have many young sisters including a good number of postulants and novices. I had the great privilege of offering Mass for the community daily. These holy and happy sisters continue to pray for me and for OLM! Keep them in your prayers too! You can learn more about them at the website carmelitesistersocd.com
Summer officially began on Monday! It’s here, so enjoy it now! Welcome Father Barrow! Be well. Do Good. God Bless. Go Sox!
Dear Parishioners:
We offer a fond farewell to our Associate Pastor, Fr. Ryan Connors this weekend. For the last three years he has faithfully served our parish family and we are grateful for all he has done for us. He has been a valued and trusted Associate who has been a true joy to live and work with these last three years. So please join me in offering him best wishes in his new endeavors! Ad multos anos!
by Bishop Tobin to do something he not only possesses the incredible intellect to accomplish but also the tremendous talent to be and that is a learned scholar of Theology and a fine teacher of the future priests studying at St. John’s Seminary. In that role he is to be a valuable asset not only to the Church in Providence but also the Church across New England. So please be sure to stop by to wish him well and say “Farewell and Thank You!” on Sunday following the 10:30am Mass.
This Friday Our Lady of Mercy Parish is hosting a Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood. This annual event is held the night before the priesthood ordinations at the Cathedral. Since this year is a Jubilee Year of Mercy, we were asked to host the great event. It is scheduled for this Friday, June 24th at 7:00pm. Bishop Evans is to preside and Father Joe Upton, the Chaplain at URI and Prout, is to preach. The event consists of Eucharistic Adoration, hymns, scripture readings and litanies as together we pray for an increase of priestly vocations. We pray especially for an increase of vocations for the Diocese of Providence. At the same Holy Hour we are also to unite our prayers for the two young men who are to be ordained priests on Saturday, June 25th.
Saturday at 10:00am. We hope and pray their priestly ministry for our Church is happy, holy and fruitful. This Holy Hour is a very prayerful and profound event and I encourage you to join us so that our parish is well represented. It is truly a privilege for our parish to host such an important event in the life of our Diocesan Church. Also know that you are welcome to attend the Ordinations to Priesthood the next day at the Cathedral. Pray for vocations and pray for our new priests! As Pope Francis reminds us: “Support your priests with love and prayers!”
On next Sunday at the 10:30am Mass we honor some of our Senior Altar Servers who are graduating high school. This year four young men are to be recognized by our parish for their many years of faithful and dutiful service at God’s Holy Altar. They are: Crispin Ferris, John Duffy, Jack Dobyzrnski, and Eric Carlson. Each has been an outstanding Altar Server since they were first trained in elementary school. We wish to thank them for their good service these past years and offer them our prayerful best wishes for their future endeavors as they graduate high school. God Bless them!
I have received official word from Bishop Tobin that Fr. Josh Barrow has been assigned as the new Associate Pastor at OLM. We thank Bishop Tobin for sending our parish another priest. In this era of less priests we are truly grateful for Fr. Barrow and we look foward to welcoming him to OLM in July. More about him in next week's bulletin.
this summer. He has one more year of theology and priestly formation while working at St. Eugene. With the grace of God he will be ordained a priest of Providence next June! We congratulate him and thank his parents and brothers for helping to nurture his vocation to the priesthood. I ask that you continue to pray for Deacon Morris but also to pray for an increase of vocations to the priesthood. We hope and pray that every family is as supportive as the Morris Family in promoting vocations to the priesthood.
We offer our prayerful congratulations to the OLM Class of 2016!
On Saturday morning, Father Connors and I attended the Ordination of our new Deacons. Three young men, Steven Battey, Joseph Brice and OLM’s Brian Morris were ordained as Transitional Deacons for the Church of Providence by Bishop Evans. We wish them our prayerful best wishes and heartfelt congratulations!
presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Pope Emeritus Benedict XV in a homily on this feast reminds us of its great importance in the life of the Church and in the life of every Catholic.
This Corpus Christi Feast is always a good time for us to deepen our devotion to the Eucharist and renew our own commitment to dutifully attending Sunday Mass. We might ask ourselves, how important is Sunday Mass each week in our lives? Do we skip it casually out of indifference or apathy? Do we strive to faithfully attend Sunday Mass even when traveling or away on holiday? The Eucharist is truly the source and summit of our faith as Catholics so it must always be central in our lives. The worship and praise of God at Sunday Mass should be the highlight of our week not just something we do out of mere obligation or habit. 
Such a review is good for all of us to conduct from time to time. Whether priest or laity we always need to strive to deepen our devotion to the Eucharist with prayer and proper reverence. But we also need to show our deep devotion by making Sunday Mass truly central in our faith lives and the highlight of our week. Corpus Christi is a time when we Catholics offer our total love and commitment for Christ in the Real Presence by honoring Him in a very public way. We do this with our Corpus Christi Procession of the Eucharist. Together we carry Christ truly present in the Eucharist to the world outside with praise, thanksgiving, solemnity and faith.
time for us to remember in prayer and with thanksgiving the men and women of the armed forces who have given their lives in service to our nation. East Greenwich has a parade like many other towns. Across the nation people visit cemeteries to lay flowers, place flags and pray for the honored dead. President Ronald Reagan said of Memorial Day: “We owe our freedom to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. We are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.” Congratulations to our new Deacons especially Brian Morris! A Blessed Corpus Christi! Happy Memorial Day! Be well. Do Good. God Bless. Go Sox!
In the name of the Junior Legion of Mary, I wish to thank the many parishioners who generously donated to their Toiletries Drive for the Homeless. The response was excellent and I know that the young men and women of the Jr. Legion were overjoyed with the support they received. All the donated items are to be distributed to the 
homeless who gather on Friday nights at the Cathedral for the weekly outreach ministry there and to the Woonsocket Women’s Shelter where there is also great need. I thank Angela Toljan who coordinates the Jr. Legion for all her hard work and commitment to this project and so many other good things the Jr. Legion does for our parish and Church. Thank You Junior Legion of Mary!
men, Brian Morris, is from Our Lady of Mercy Church. His parents, John and Marybeth, are active parishioners here and Brian and his brothers are graduates of OLM School. So not only is it truly a great day for the Church of Providence but also for OLM!
funerals without a Mass, and preach a homily at Mass.
June 7 at 6:00Pm in OLM Church. Keep these students in your prayers as they prepare to embark to high school
Be sure to give him your usual warm welcome when he arrives. And also mark your calendars for the weekend of June 18/19 as that is to be Fr. Connors final weekend here at OLM. We are to honor him and thank him as a parish with a reception in Mercy Park on Sunday, June 19 following 10:30am Mass. Please be sure to come!
Mother Nature was kind to us for last Saturday’s celebration of First Communion. No rain showers to dampen the day. The sixty-five children were well prepared and eager to receive the Eucharistic Lord for the very first time. The Church was decorated beautifully, the music was superb, the children angelic and the First Communion Masses truly a celebration of faith, hope and love. I offer thanks to all who helped to make the day so meaningful and beautiful especially our First Communion Class teachers, aides and volunteers. Also, we thank the parents and families of these children for bringing them to the Altar of God to receive Jesus Christ sacramentally for the first of many times.
to stay close to Christ and His Church. We hope that they might always find the meaning and direction in their lives by nourishing and strengthening themselves on the Sacraments. I recall the words that Pope Emeritus Benedict spoke to a First Communion Class meeting with him.
He said: “The Mass centers life. We live amid so many things. And the people who do not go to church, do not know that it is precisely Jesus they lack. But they feel that something is missing in their lives. If God is absent from my life, if Jesus is absent from my life, a guide, an essential friend is missing, even an important joy for life, the strength to grow as a man, to overcome my vices and mature as a human being. With the passing of the weeks and years, we feel more and more keenly the absence of God, the absence of Jesus. It is a fundamental and destructive incompleteness. I could easily speak of countries where atheism has prevailed for years: how souls are destroyed, but also the earth. In this way we can see that it is important, and I would say fundamental, to be nourished by Jesus in Communion. It is he who gives us enlightenment, offers us guidance for our lives, a guidance that we need.”
Today we celebrate the great Solemnity of Pentecost which celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church fifty days after Easter. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were able to speak their native Galilean dialect but were understood by people of many different languages and nations. It is considered as the birthday of the Church because from that point on the Apostles carried the Good News of Christ to the whole world. Pentecost is probably one of the most important days on the Church calendar, but it often gets overlooked by Catholics. 
The same Holy Spirit who filled the apostles on Pentecost comes down upon our Church of OLM. We call upon the Holy Spirit to fill us with tongues of fire, so that with passion, love and great courage, we might bring the Gospel out to our world which so desperately needs to embrace it.