Week of July 31, 2011
Greetings from the Pastor
Eighteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time:
Multiply Your Assets
Today as we celebrate the Mass for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the members of the Society of Jesus throughout the world celebrate the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, their founder. Since I entered the Society of Jesus, July 30, 1955, I now celebrated my fifty-sixth anniversary as a member of the Jesuits. A lot has happened since that Saturday in 1955. I was a survivor of the Novitiate fire at Shadowbrook, March 10, 1956, which took the lives of three Priests and one Jesuit Brother. At that time I was sent to Plattsburg, New York to finish my Novitiate training and to start the Juniorate. When the Novitiate in New England was rebuilt, I was a junior and went back to complete my first two years of study.
After that I spent three years studying Philosophy, then it was off to Baghdad, Iraq to teach High School for three years. When my classmates went to Language school I continued teaching. Then it was off to Theology for four years with Ordination to the Priesthood after my third year. I made my fourth year of Theology while doing graduate work in math and Biology at Tufts University, Medford Massachusetts.
While studying at Tufts, I lived at the St. Joseph Retreat League for working men at Charlestown, Massachusetts. After my degree in Biology and Baghdad closed, I joined the staff at the Retreat Center and joined the Naval Reserve with RMCB-27, a unit I was with for six years after which I entered active Naval service.
My Naval service included, one year with the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa, three years at Naval Air Station, Fallon, Nevada as the first Catholic Chaplain, then off to Guam where I was at Navcams West Pac. After enjoying warm sunny weather I was off the Brunswick Naval Air Station, then on to Naval Station, Long Beach, CA. Finally, I got a Sea Tour on the Carrier Enterprise CVN-65, then it was to Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe, HI for a double tour which cost me a free tour to my home of record. After retirement from the Navy, I then came here to Sts. Peter and Paul Church, where I am more Happy!
