Dear Parishioners of Our Lady of Mercy and Our Lady of Sorrows,

A week ago Friday, June 19th the Universal Church celebrated the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Benedict chose that feastday to begin the “Year of the Priest.” For the next year, the Holy Father is encouraging you to PRAY FOR YOUR PRIESTS!

I join the Holy Father in making this appeal to you. We, at Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mercy are truly blessed with an abundant presence of priests. Right now, we are being served by SIX priests: myself, Father Marty, Father Manuel, Father Ralph, Father Francis, and Father Berman.

Father Francis and Father Berman are here on vacation. They are priests of the Archdiocese of Capiz in the Philippines. Father Francis will return home on July 1st to continue his academic work in preparation for his work as a seminary professor and formator. Father Berman will be with us until the end of August. He will then transfer to the Collegio Filipino in Rome to begin graduate work leading to
an advanced degree. His work up to now has been teaching at the Seminary in Capiz and assisting his Archbishop as the Chancellor of the Archdiocese.

Father Ralph is “on loan” to us from the Archdiocese of Jarro in Iloilo, Philippines. He spent nine years working in the seminary of his Archdiocese. Last year, his archbishop granted him a three year sabbatical. He is spending that sabbatical among us, improving his skills as a parish priest, a role he will take up upon his return to his Archdiocese in 2011.

You will see a new face among us beginning this Sunday. This is Rolando “Dong” Yabao. He is a seminarian of our Archdiocese of Newark. He is assigned to our Parish for Pastoral Formation. He will be with us for at least a year working as part of our parish staff as he completes the process preparing him for ordination as a deacon and eventually as a priest.

Father Marty, Father Manuel, and I are just plain old priests of the Archdiocese of Newark. Our parishes are truly blessed with this priestly presence. Please pray for us each day, especially in this extraordinary “Year of the Priest.”

I have ordered holy cards with the image of St. John Vianney, the patron of parish priests. The card will carry a prayer for priest. I will distribute them when they arrive. in the mean time, I have printed the prayer below. Please say it each day for us. Thank you.

My love and prayers,

Father Jack

P.S. Archbishop Myers notified me this week that he has appointed me Dean of our local Deanery, Deanery 12. Please pray for me doubly as I take up this responsibility again.

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Prayer for Priests O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for Your lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to You the priests dearest to me; the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way [especially ...]. O Jesus, keep them all close to Your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.