From the Pastor:
My Dear Parish Family:

Believe it or not it is mid-July already and the sum- mer is moving fast. Hot and humid days are still on the way, so try to stay cool!

We are blessed in our Catholic Faith because of all the men and women throughout history who have be- come Saints. We are able to celebrate their lives and rejoice in the continued prayers they offer for us still here on earth struggling to gain Heaven. We celebrate two wonderful feast days during the month of July: our parish feast day, July 11th and tomorrow (July 16th), Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Although there are many wonderful Saints for us to pray to during the year, Our Blessed Mother and our parish patron are special advocates for our parish family.

We will be celebrating our parish patron,
St. Benedict, all this weekend at every Mass to ask him to keep praying for the priests, deacons and the entire parish. The Catholic Church’s rules allow us to move the parish feast day to the closest Sunday be- fore or after the actual day and so, because it fell on a Wednesday this year we get to celebrate and ask the intercession of St. Benedict on his actual feast day as well as this weekend. So, pray that St. Benedict will continue to bless our parish every day, but especially this weekend.

We ask for the intercession of Our Blessed Lady always and the reason I remind us of this particular feast of the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is because there is a beautiful statue of her in the front of the rectory. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel statue was recently repainted and the big bushes blocking her were removed so that all of us passing the corner of Otis Avenue and Logan Avenue are al- ways able to ask for her intercession for our families, for our parish community and for Life.

I leave this evening (July 15th) to fly to St.
Louis to begin my studies officially at the Aquinas Institute. As I mentioned already in past Pastor’s columns, I will remain here as the Pastor but will also be studying, mostly online, with occasional trips to St. Louis, for a degree in Preaching. I will keep you updated as the program progresses along. The pro- gram is a four year program, so kindly remember me in your prayers. Thank you!

Until next week - Our Lady of Mt Carmel,
St. Benedict and Cardinal Cooke, Servant of God, pray for us!

Fr. Stephen P. Norton