This past Friday, July 26, we celebrated the feast day of Saints Anne & Joachim, Mary’s parents - and so the grandparents of Our Lord. There is a tradition that says they were unable to conceive for a very long time in their marriage. Like holy Abraham and Sarah (and others in Israel’s history) they kept faith in God and continued to pray for a child of their own.

Every three years our United States Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross meets in a formal Provincial Chapter. This is sort of like a cross between a family meeting and retreat… It is an opportunity for those we elect as delegates to discern the Holy Spirit’s will for us as a religious order.

Our parish, like many, considers July 1 as the beginning of the new “fiscal year.” There’s no theology behind this, rather it’s an administrative way to wrap up the previous year’s accounting and operations and get ready for the new year. Hard as it is to believe, the school students begin classes in three weeks and around the corner are the new OCIA classes, charity drives, and fall activities.

I got a fair amount of feedback from last week’s “From the Pastor” in which I proposed a comparison to the television character Ned Flanders. Thank you for sharing your thoughts - both the laughs and critique - I really am grateful that anyone reads this at all (besides dear Mom checking online from Ohio…)