While we are away in the Holy Land please welcome Fr. Robert Blondell to St. Clare. Fr. Robert is a senior priest of our Archdiocese, who lives in Chesterfield, MI and is the brother of Tom Blondell of our parish. Fr. Robert will minister at St. Clare until Friday, October 27th. I am very grateful to him for his generous acceptance of my invitation to serve in my absence. We will pray for each of you at the holy sites and present the prayers and petitions you entrusted to us. Please keep us in your prayers as well. This is our 90th Anniversary pilgrimage of thanksgiving, prayer, and gratitude for our parish and school. Stay tuned, pictures and updates from our trip will be posted on our parish Facebook page.

Catholic parishes will observe World Mission Sunday 2017 on October 22 by taking up a special collection. This is a reminder to all of us that we are to be A “Missionary Church” as Pope Francis calls for so often. The Michaelite Fathers have their missions in South America: Argentina and Paraguay; Caribbean: Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico; and Oceania in Papua New Guinea. Thank you for your generous support of their missionary efforts.

Sunday October 29th at our 11:00 Mass we will celebrate All Souls Day.  If you have a family member or a loved one who died this past year but was not buried from our parish, you can call the parish office at 313-647-5060 and provide the name of the person who died.  We will prepare a candle for you to carry that day in the procession along with the others. 

Two years after the statue was ordered, last week the call came and in a flurry of activity our beautiful Guardian Angel statue arrived, was unpacked and installed in its place of honor in our memorial garden for the unborn. Thanks to the generous contribution of (Thanks to generous donation of Ternes Family) this statue stands tall as a reminder of the sanctity of all life, especially those that never had their time on earth.  Be sure to take a moment not only to see this beautiful addition to our campus, out near the gazebo, but to say a prayer for all the little children who bypassed us on earth and went straight into the embrace of God.

As I write this column the death toll in Las Vegas has risen to 59, over 500 injured making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. History. This was a dreadful Monday morning we woke up to, learning about the tragedy. Pope Francis, has sent his thoughts and prayers to Las Vegas’ Bishop Joseph Anthony Pepe and the people of the city calling the shooting a “senseless tragedy”. We too join people from all over the world sending prayers for the families affected by this violence.