This coming Tuesday, Nov. 20, I will be leaving to take my annual retreat. Most dioceses and religious orders, ours included, mandate that priests and religious make a retreat of (usually) six days once per year. This period of retreat is meant to be a time to relax, recharge, and refresh the sense of our own prayer life and our call to serve those entrusted to us in our ministry. I will be traveling to a Benedictine monastery elsewhere in New England, where I will be able to join with the monks in their common prayer and have the rest of my days set aside for contemplation, prayer, and spiritual reading. I will return the following Monday evening and be back in the office on Tuesday, November 27.
I humbly ask your prayers for me as I embark upon this retreat. As you all know, these past months have been especially busy and not without their challenges and stresses, so my retreat comes at a particularly opportune time. Know I will be praying for all of you even more than usual during my week away. The parish will be in the very capable hands of Fr. Elias and Fr. Joachim in my absence. Fr. Isaac Morales, who was with us this summer as a newly-ordained priest, will be in New Haven over the coming weekend to assist with Sunday Masses as well.
As I will be gone over the Thanksgiving holiday, let me say how incredibly blessed I am to be given the opportunity to serve here at St. Mary’s. I am so incredibly thankful that the Lord (through my Dominican provincial and the archbishop of Hartford) called me to serve as pastor of this wonderful parish. I thank you for your love, your support, your faith, and your dedication to each other and to our parish as a whole. The way you witness to the faith in your lives together and in the world is inspiring to see. I pray that over the year ahead we may all work together to hear the calling of the Lord, discern what He is asking of our parish, and work together with dedication to accomplish His plan for us.
I’ll see you in a week. In the meantime, Oremus pro invoice“ --- let us pray for one another!”
God Bless,
Fr. John Paul
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