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Dear Friends,
I am so happy to officially congratulate our own Father Jack Kolodziej on his election as Provincial of the Philadelphia-Wilmington province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales.
As Provincial, Father Jack is the Major Superior of all the Oblates who live and minister on the East Coast, as far west as Ohio. In this capacity, Father Jack will be living at the Oblates’ Provincial House in Wilmington. Father, along with his council, is responsible for over 100 Oblate priests and brothers.
Knowing and loving Father Jack as we do, we are confident that the Oblate community couldn’t have elected a better man for this challenging responsibility. Father is a man of compassion and generosity, he is talented, always ready to give, and is a great listener. Over and above all of these fine qualities, Father Jack is an exemplary priest, and he has demonstrated his fidelity to the Church and Christ’s priesthood in the 16+ years he has been ministering here at Saint Timothy’s. We are happy that our blessing in Father Jack will now be shared with his Oblate confreres and with the larger Church.
We congratulate as well the members of Father Jack’s council, two of whom have a direct Saint Tim’s connection: Father Joe Campellone (who is a son of Saint Tim’s), Brother Dan Wisniewski (whose mother, Barbara, is a member of our parish), Father Michael Murray, and Father Michael Vannicola. We offer our blessing and support to all five Oblates who make up this new leadership team, and wish them every grace as they embark on this ministry of service to their fellow Oblates.
Many have asked me if Father Jack will continue to minister among us with this new responsibility. The answer is “Yes!” Father Jack very much wants to continue coming to us for his weekend ministry. With his busy schedule, he may not be able to be with us every weekend, but he will make every effort to assist us as much as he can.
We celebrated this past week our greatest American holiday, Independence Day.
Of course, being in the midst of the summer season, July 4th always brings with it picnics and trips to the shore and the mountains, as well as marvelous exhibitions of patriotism in the form of parades and beautiful displays of fireworks. All of this is great, and is good for us to experience in order to fill us anew with the love of our country we should have and really need in order to continue to be the responsible citizens we are called to be, by our national heritage and by God. But this great celebration of independence also calls us to contemplate within ourselves the great gift of freedom we have enjoyed now as a people for 246 years, a gift that has helped shaped our nation and its people into a beautiful reflection of the children of God, rooted in him and always living and working in his service and the service of those most in need.
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. Much of this tearing apart and breaking down is a result of our ignoring, as a nation, the ways of God and the very presence of God in our midst, that foundational cornerstone upon which this great nation was built.
We remember in these days of celebration that God himself is the very source of the freedom we enjoy. As people of faith, let us ask him to open the hearts of all our sisters and brothers --- Americans all --- so that, no matter what their faith background, they may recognize him and him alone as the one who created us, sustains us, and leads us, always in hope, into the future that, with his guidance, we are now shaping. As we celebrate the great gift of freedom, let us proudly cry out, both in prayer and in truth, “God bless America!”
Know that you and those you love are daily remembered in my Mass and my prayers.
Love and prayers,
Father Olivere