My Dear Parish Family:

I leave for St. Louis this evening (Sunday, October 6th) to spend the week in class with the other members of Aquinas Institute at St. Louis University. I am looking forward to seeing the others in my doctoral program class. The week is very intensive and each day is long, but interesting. I will be back by next weekend for our Sunday Masses, but will certainly be remembering all of you in my prayers and Masses. Please continue to pray for me and my classmates.

God always hears our prayers and we should never give up praying for our Nation, our government leaders, our family and friends. Sometimes it is hard to pray! There is always so much going on in all our lives. You may think that because I am a priest prayer is easy. I wish that was true! Some days
I am so distracted in my prayers and some days there is so much going on all day at the rectory that I honestly do not have time to pray. Nonetheless, we should all commit our- selves to daily prayer.

The Women’s Cornerstone retreat showed the women who were with us this weekend the importance of prayer. The Men’s Cornerstone Retreat will be at the end of this month. The parish needs to pray for the success of that weekend, as we did for the Women’s Retreat and look how beautiful and blessed the weekend was for many women. Prayer should be like breathing!

We should always be praying. Pray the rosary on your way to work or if you are able to, get on your knees every night at your bedside to thank God for the blessings of the day. Ask God for forgive- ness of sins we are conscious of and those that we are not aware of by praying the Act of Contrition everyday!

Perhaps you are like me, needing a reminder to pray everyday! Maybe you can get a medal or a holy card and put it someplace you go to everyday, like putting the holy card on a mirror in your home or placing a medal of the Blessed Mother in your car so whenever you look into the mirror or get into the car, you can remember to say a prayer. Prayer is very much needed in our world today, so please stop every- day and pray.

Until next week, peace and prayers! St. Benedict and Cardinal Cooke, Servant of God, pray for us!

Fr. Stephen P. Norton