Honoring Service, Forming Youth, Building the Future

Last weekend was a joyous celebration for the Diocese of Fargo, as they celebrated the ordination of five men to the priesthood. A number of parishioners and I were able to be present for this occasion. We attended to particularly pray for and support now Father Pat Sorrells, who was among those ordained. We served as the teaching parish for Father Pat these past four years while he attended the Saint Paul Seminary. He is the fourth seminarian for whom we have served as a teaching parish during my time at Saint Patrick Parish. We will need to wait until later this summer to see if we are called upon to support another seminarian during their seminarian formation. 

This week is a week many of our youth have been excited and waiting for – it is the week our youth participate in Extreme Faith Camp. Chaperons and high school students leave Sunday morning. They arrive at camp a day early to prepare for the arrival of the middle school students. The middle school students leave early, before 6 AM, on Monday to travel to the camp that is outside of Rhinelander, WI. This year we are taking two buses to camp. One will take the crew up on Sunday. A second bus will take the campers up on Monday. We are grateful for a gift given to our parish in honor of Martin Reinhart, who died recently. A memorial gift given by a family friend is allowing us to take a second bus, rather than put a lot of kids in private vehicles. All total we will have over sixty people at Extreme Faith Camp this year. 

This coming weekend will be the last weekend Father Dan preaches in our parish as our Associate Pastor or, using his official title, Parochial Vicar. He will preach at the two Masses on Sunday. He has been a great asset to our parish and has become a good friend to me and many in our parish. His homilies have inspired and challenged us. His love for the Eucharist and liturgy has helped us improve our liturgical ministries. His passion for Catholic marriages has led us to implement a new process for couples preparing for marriage. His ability to speak Spanish and love for the Hispanic people in our community led him to follow a call to grow our Hispanic Ministry. His love of history has helped us uncover many historical facts about our parish. The time he has spent with us has helped him grow as a human and priest. But we have received from him, I feel, more than we have given him. I know many of us will stay in contact with him, and may we all pray for him regularly as he shares his gifts with other parishes. 

Just an update on something I wrote about previously: the hope to bring a Catholic High School to St. Croix County. The committee, which includes representatives from the parishes in Somerset, New Richmond, River Falls, and Hudson, has been meeting regularly. We previously conducted a survey, had a feasibility study completed, compiled a projected five-year budget, and toured or spoke with representatives from other Catholic High Schools. The idea for the high school is that it would follow policies set by our Diocese and fall under the ultimate authority of our Bishop. However it would be independent of any existing parishes or schools. It would need to be self-sufficient financially.

While the committee would like to eventually see the school in its own facility, we are working off a plan to potentially house the school for its first year or two at Saint Patrick School. While our enrollment has continued to climb, we are currently expecting to have over 280 students for the coming year, we do have space where the convent used to be, which is on the second floor of our school. Again it would be independent of our school, but we could share things like our copy machines, Internet, gym, hot lunch program, etc. The committee is presenting its plans to our Bishop next month, with the hope that we could potentially look at launching a year from now. This is a large endeavor, but it could be tremendously impactful on our communities. More to come on this in the future. 

I hope we are all enjoying the summer weather. No complaining that it is too hot. Remember, winter can be long around here.  

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