From the Desk of the Pastor

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,

May you have a blessed celebration of Independence Day. Let us be sure to thank God for the many blessings we enjoy.

On June 10 we celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation for 52 of our parish teenagers, 10 of whom were Academy alumni. Though the day was beautiful and the Mass went off with out a glitch, I felt more than a tinge of sadness about it. Here is why:

As pastor of OLMC, I did not know most of the candidates. In large measure that is my own fault. We just have not crossed paths enough to know who was who or anything about most of these students. And, for many of them, it will be the last time I will see them for sometime. Though they all wrote letters to me attesting to the desire to be confirmed and stating their commitment to do more, the fact is that many consider Confirmation as graduation – they are done and want us to leave them alone.

Therefore, I am going to commit to a sincere effort to address this matter in the coming year. I am going to agree to celebrate an evening Sunday Mass aimed at and attended by the next Confirmation class. I pick Sunday nights as the time when almost every other competing activity is done for the weekend.

I have asked Elliot Guerra to head up this revitalized Confirmation program and Justin Fernandez to devote all his youth ministry energy to this program. The Parish Council and I have challenged Elliot and Justin to make this program so vibrant and interesting that two years from now other parishes will be calling us to learn how we did it and how to replicate a Spirit-filled Confirmation preparation experience.

Some have been concerned that this means that Elliot and Justin are leaving our Academy. Not at all! Both will be fulfilling every single role they presently carry out in school. Justin will continue to lead campus ministry and teach middle school religion. Elliot will handle all the communication functions and web site management that he presently does. And, Elliot will be presenting a full year of dramatic productions just as he has done in recent years.

I consider this a WIN-WIN. We are bringing our best young talent to the service of our future Catholic family and we are not diminishing our National Blue Ribbon Academy in any way.

So, here is the last thing that must be said. We need…we need the parents of our  next Confirmation class to back this effort and make sure their teens attend the Sunday evening Masses. And, of course, parents are more than welcome to attend.

Stay tuned. You will be hearing a lot more about this effort in the coming months.