Thank you to all who participated in our Blue Mass on Friday. We appreciate your support of our law enforcement officers. The love and joy was felt by all who attended.

We will be having Communion Services this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday while Father Piega attends his yearly priest retreat. Please pray for him and all the priests of our diocese for continued wisdom, strength and fortitude for the coming year.

As a reminder to those coming to the R.R. Express game on Wednesday evening, please wear your green St. Patrick shirts! If you don't have one, we still have a few left in the office. There is one ticket left for the game if anyone is interested.

The office will be closed on Monday, July 4 in observance of Independence Day.

For our Saint of the Week Series, I'd like to introduce you to St. Germaine Cousin (1579-1601). Born into a poor farm family in France, Germaine had a deformed arm and suffered from scrofula which left sores on her neck and face. Her mother passed when she was just an infant and her father remarried soon after her death. His new wife could not handle the maladies of Germaine and treated her cruelly, teaching her siblings to do the same. She was kicked out of the house and forced to live in the barn with the sheep she tended. 

If anyone could live in self pity, it was Germaine, but she remained faithful to God, teaching the local village children the rosary and shared what little food she had with those in need. She loved God so much, she would ask her guardian angel to watch over her sheep so that she could go to daily Mass. She prayed the rosary and was so devout to the Angelus that she would fall to her knees at the first sound of the bell, even if it was she was in the middle of a stream! It has been reported that when the waters were high, the river would part to allow her to pass to get to church. 

Eventually, her family realized how good she was an offered her a place back in the house. She chose to stay in the barn with her beloved animals until her death at the age of twenty two. 

There are many times in life we all feel mistreated and unloved. May we embrace the gift of patience, kindness and generosity that St Germaine so easily gave to her transgressors and lean into our love of the Father to help us grow in holiness.