We pray for God’s blessing on the students of our Blessed Trinity School, who begin their new academic year this Tuesday, as well as on our wonderful faculty, who have been working so hard in these past weeks to make sure everything is in readiness for the children’s return.

On Saturday, August 20th, we will be celebrating the Feast of Saint Bartholomew (his feast day is actually August 24th, but we are moving it to Saturday the 20th so that everyone can join in the celebration). Our 4:00 Saturday evening Mass at Saint Bartholomew on this day will be a Solemn Mass, and will be followed by a celebration in the hall with hamburgers, hot dogs, and other goodies.

As I’ve mentioned to you more than once in the past few months, the Archdiocese is looking upon us as two separate parishes, joined together as one Catholic community in the lower Northeast.

I remind you that I would like to begin again the taking up of the collection at the weekend Masses by ushers, as opposed to everyone placing their donation in the baskets which are positioned in various points in the church. In order to do this, of course, we need ushers, especially since our faithful crew of ushers has been depleted for various reasons. I would ask any man or woman of high school age or older who may be interested in being an usher at any of our weekend Masses, to please call the rectory or see me before or after Mass

We are participating in this fundraiser with several other Catholic parishes and institutions. We are asking for a donation of $25 for each raffle ticket, and are asking you to please consider purchasing the raffle tickets for yourself, or selling them to family members, neighbors, or friends. The purchaser keeps the right half of the ticket.

Independence Day also is a bold reminder to us that the freedom we enjoy is very tenuous; in an instant it can be taken away, and in many ways the fundamental values we hold so dear have already been compromised by those working in our very midst to break down our society and to tear apart the freedom of which we are so proud.

Father Lane arrived this past Monday, and is already getting into parish life here at Saint Timothy’s. As I have told him many times, this is a perfect place for a newly ordained to learn how to be a priest. In a time when very few parishes anywhere, including in this Archdiocese, have assistant pastors, it is quite an honor for us, as a parish community, to  have Father Lane assigned to us (you will recall that we haven’t had an assistant since Father Monahan left us in the winter of 2018).

We are happy to welcome home to Saint Timothy this weekend Father John O’Farrell. Father John, a life-long parishioner of our parish, was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood on Saturday, June 4th by Bishop Michael Burbidge, the Bishop of Arlington, Virginia, in the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington.

We celebrate this weekend the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. This great feast, in which we honor God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is a reminder to us of the awesome mystery of our God, a mystery which, in many ways, is too mind-boggling for us to understand with our mere human brains.

It is with a great measure of gratitude, as well as much sadness, that I announce to you the retirement of our Blessed Trinity principal, Ms. Linda Milewski. Ms. Milewski’s retirement brings to a close a long and fruitful career in Catholic education.

ask you to remember in your prayers in a special way the six men who were ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, May 21, in the Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Please remember in your prayers as well, we, your parish priests, who are celebrating the anniversaries of our ordinations. Father Noone is celebrating 55 years, Father Jack is celebrating 23 years, Father Buck is celebrating 8 years, and I am celebrating 28 years.

I once again respectfully remind you to please consider your gift to the 2022 Catholic Charities Appeal, if you have not already given your gift. My goal as your pastor is for every household and/or every wage earner in the parish to make a sacrificial gift to this year’s Appeal.

I would like to thank all those who took the time and trouble to complete the Disciple-Maker Index Survey, which was administered by the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI). The CLI says that, on the average, parishes have between 15 and 18% of their Mass-going population complete the survey. Even without CLI having recorded all of our surveys, we are already up to about 45% of our Mass-going population here at Saint Timothy’s having completed the survey.

Many of you already know that Father Buck has been appointed by Archbishop Perez to be the Dean of Men in the College Division of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. Father Buck’s appointment takes effect on June 30th. Many have asked what exactly the Dean of Men is. Essentially, Father Buck will be the priest who is “in charge” of the seminarians in the college division of the seminary (i.e., the first four years of seminary formation). He will be a father to the men, as well as a mother, a disciplinarian, a shoulder for them to cry on, and, perhaps more than anything else, a great mentor and role model, showing them more by example than by word, what it means to be a good priest.

offer my deep thanks to all those who made our celebration of Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum here at Saint Timothy the beautiful and uplifting experience it was for all of us. Special thanks to Father Buck, Father Noone, and Father Jack, as well as all of our liturgical ministers, including our readers, extraordinary ministers, altar servers, ushers and greeters, music ministers, choirs, sacristans, those who cleaned and decorated the church, as well as anyone else who had anything to do with our celebrations during this past week.

I invite and strongly encourage each and every one of you to be with us during these solemn days. The liturgy of the Church during the Sacred Triduum is rich in word and symbol, and draws us into the very sacrifice of Jesus on the cross which reaches its climax in the celebration of the resurrection at Easter. The schedule for the Triduum and Easter, which you should have received in your home, is reprinted in this bulletin for your convenience.

It is an important aspect of my job as pastor to make sure we, as a parish community, remain financially healthy, and that your generous contributions (i.e., your financial stewardship) are being used prudently and wisely. I take this role as chief financial steward of our parish very seriously, and the fact that I have been entrusted with this responsibility by the Archbishop and by you is humbling. Of course, I could never fulfill this charge alone.

I remind you that on Wednesday, April 6, at 7:00 P.M., we will be celebrating our annual Lenten Penance Service in the lower church. There will be several priests with us that evening to bestow Christ’s mercy and forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

To take the Disciple Maker Index survey, please use the link below: https://www.catholicleaders.org/phila-dmi PLEASE NOTE:  When you open the link you will see a list of all the parishes in the Archdiocese. Please select our parish (Saint Timothy, Philadelphia) to complete the Disciple Maker Index survey.

I think it is especially significant that we are honoring Saint Joseph and asking his intercession while our world is being torn apart by this terrible conflict in Ukraine. We are desperately in need of God’s help, and Saint Joseph, the great intercessor, will certainly hear our prayers and plead with God on our behalf. Joseph is a powerful saint, which is why we go to him with many different needs always.