Dear Parishioners, On this final weekend of June, we find ourselves fully back into Ordinary time and officially in the summer months. I hope that everyone has an enjoyable summer and a chance to relax. Of course, if your family is looking for something to do, don’t forget to register (or volunteer) for our Vacation Bible School in July! Starting today, this is a special week for all your priests: It is our anniversary week! As you may have heard me mention before, our anniversaries fall in the same week. I kick off the week with celebrating my priesthood anniversary today on June 26. Fr. Bill is on June 28 and Fr. Ben and Fr. Tom share their anniversary (as they were a class of three ordained on the same day) on June 29. It’s also easy to remember how many years we have been ordained as we are all 10 years apart. Today marks my 29th anniversary of ordination as a priest (and I celebrate 30 years as a deacon this fall). Fr. Bill is 10 years behind me, and Fr. Tom and Fr. Ben are 20 years behind me in ordination years. If you add all those years up, between us we have 66 years of ordination! As we celebrate our anniversaries this week, your priests are not looking for cards or gifts. Instead, as I tell people so often, I am looking for prayers. God has always blessed me or provided for me in a material way. However, in the work we do as priests, we need your prayers so that we may be good and holy and lead others to Christ. We need these prayers to do our work and ministry and the Church needs your prayers for more vocations. On behalf of my brother priests, we thank you for your support and prayers so we can do what God called us to do. This is also the last week for our Knights of Columbus challenge for the Bishop’s Annual Appeal. Please remember that the Knights will make a special donation to our St. Vincent de Paul Society for every pledge that has been made or will be made by June 30. Thank you Knights for making this commitment to helping us work towards making our goal as a parish and helping those who are in need. Thanks for reading! Fr. Mark