This past Monday we had the Funeral Mass for Leonard Young, a parishioner who died in Florida back in February. Since he was a firefighter, we had many of his comrades here who saluted him one by one at the end of the Mass. It was very moving. We continue to pray for him as well as for his wife Anna and his daughters Andrea & Heather. His cremains will be buried at Rittman National Cemetery later this month.
Augie Bublavey has been a lector at the 4pm Mass on Saturday for many, many years. He proclaimed the Word of God so well that I was always happy to see him come forward to lector. But he feels it is time to move on from that ministry so I just wanted to say thanks to him and to all who faithfully minister to the parish in this way. Augie will continue to be a Eucharistic Minster and Usher when needed and we're glad to have him as part of our liturgical ministry.
Our maintenance crew have begun working on our summer projects. Once again we had many people here from Sherwin Williams who painted the preschool area on the 2nd floor of the Community Center and the conference room on the 1st floor. They donated the paint as well. Due to another very generous donation from parishioners, we are able to replace the carpet in the preschool, replace the fence and mulch in their play area and make several other improvements to the preschool program. I'll tell you about more projects next week.
Thanks for your prayers for my dad. He seemed to have responded very well to his first chemo treatment and got even stronger, not sicker. He will continue to have 5 more chemo every 3 weeks in the hopes that the non-Hodgkins lymphoma will go into remission. He has been receiving physical therapy at an assisted living place and will be going home early this week. It's been a wonderful opportunity for my siblings, aunt & cousins to spend time with him in the hospital & nursing home. He's got a big heart and an even bigger faith.
Michaela on the other hand was diagnosed with pancreatitis, something that dogs can get from eating too much people food. I wonder if people can get sick from eating too much dog food. Anyway, while is doing much better now, the Vet gave her (or actually ME) orders not to give her any people food and absolutely no dog treats either. If that were forced on me, I'd be hanging up my collar (dog collar that is, not Roman collar). For me that would a terrible life sentence of cruel & unusual punishment. But so far she seems to be adjusting to it pretty well. She should be losing some of that excess weight & looking healthier soon. And for that, I salute her.