Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 6, 2018

This Wednesday we welcome Bishop Zubik to St. Malachy to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with our eighth graders. With this sacrament, our young men and women can rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all the choices of their lives. That makes me think of how appropriate it is to have Bishop Zubik coming to our parish at this time. With the decisions recently announced for On Mission for the Church Alive, we know that the bishop has relied deeply on the guidance of the Spirit throughout the process, including clergy assignments. So while we pray for our Confirmandi and for Bishop Zubik, I also ask your prayers for us priests as we prepare for our new ministry.

With that, I would like to offer a word of introduction for the priests who will be serving this community. This is not an “official” biography, but just my own knowledge of the priests who will be here. The new Administrator (who will get the title of pastor when the merger becomes official) is Fr. David Poecking, who is currently pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Carnegie. He was here a few months ago as one of the speakers for our Speaker Series. Fr. Poecking is a convert to the Catholic faith who spoke here about the influence that the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien had upon his life. I am confident that Bishop Zubik has made a fine choice in leading the new grouping.

Fr. Alan Morris has served as pastor of several parishes in our diocese, including serving as administrator of one of the parishes that I will be moving to, St. Valentine. As a young priest, he succeeded me as parochial vicar of another one of the parishes I will soon be serving, St. Gabriel Whitehall. In his first year there, he posed for a picture with the eighth graders of the school, and some people thought he was one of the kids who dressed up as a priest.

Speaking of St. Gabriel Parish, one of my duties during my time there was to train the altar servers. One of those servers grew up to be a priest who will be living here. Fr. Michael Ruffalo will be assigned to work with the archives of the diocese and will be available for help especially on weekends.

The other priests serving these parishes are more familiar to us. Fr. Bob Zajdel has served as parochial vicar at St. John of God Parish. We also have three retired priests who will continue to be in residence. Fr. Rege Ryan is, of course, the “mayor of McKees Rocks.” Fr. Bob Herrmann is a former pastor of Holy Trinity who has been living in their rectory in his retirement. And of course our own beloved Fr. Russell Maurer is staying with us. We will also benefit from the ministry of Deacon Tim Killmeyer, currently of Holy Trinity.

In the meantime, I am still pastor here until October 15. I will be writing more about my upcoming assignment in the future. But I take this opportunity to remind you that I will not forget the wonderful adventure I have had here at St. Malachy. The line I have been remembering a lot lately is from our school athletics, “Once a Bomber, always a Bomber.”                                                                                         
                                                               Father H