3 New Deacons for our Diocese!

It was a great joy and privilege to concelebrate the Ordination Mass yesterday afternoon at St. Peter's Cathedral where Ryan Ford, Nick Thompson, and Terry Saunders were ordained deacons!  Transitional deacons Ford and Thompson are now entering their last year of formation for the priesthood, while Deacon Saunders is a permanent deacon.  There is a nice article about all three of them in the most recent issue of the U.P. Catholic.  Thank God for such good and faithful men willing to lay down their lives in service to the Lord and His Church!

It was a particularly proud day for St. Anne's Parish in Escanaba, where both Deacon Ryan and Deacon Terry are parishioners.  Deacon Nick is from Resurrection Parish in Menominee, MI.

Fr. Larry and I are VERY excited to have Deacon Ryan with us this summer at St. Michael's.  He spent last summer at the Cathedral, so this will be a further chapter of pastoral experience and growth for him.

The three deacons had a nice reception here at St. Michael's in the Zyrd Parish Center for their immediate family.  Towards the end, Deacon Ryan got up and had some kind words of thanksgiving to share.

Bishop Sample and his mother Joyce both came as well.  After the reception, some of the Boy Scouts who are working on the Ad Altare Dei Religious Award (the name means "towards the altar of God") helped out with the clean-up.  They had also been at the reception.  Bishop Sample graciously agreed to take a picture with us:

We finished the day with a dip in Lake Superior!  I don't have any pictures, I'm sorry to say!  Fr. Tim Ekaitis had to make up for wimping out on Thursday when I jumped in off some rocks in the midst of a kayak trip and he didn't!  So, Fr. Larry, Fr. Tim, Deacon Ryan and I went out to the beach in the moonlight and made three bold plunges into the lake.  VERY refreshing!  The swimming season has begun!  One of Fr. Larry's and my pastoral goals for Deacon Ryan is that he fill out a little bit - it takes a little extra insulation to be able to "bear" swimming in Lake Superior!