By Fr. Kevin Magner

Please welcome to our parish Deacon Joseph Nguyen, who will be staying at the rectory for the summer. Deacon Nguyen was just ordained to the diaconate for our archdiocese and will be serving as our summer deacon this year. Deacon Nguyen is slated to be ordained to the priesthood next May. He begins at the parish today! Please say hello and make him feel welcome.

The archdiocesan ordination Mass for this year’s group of priests will be this Saturday, May 29, at the St. Paul Cathedral. Among those being ordained is Deacon Jimmy Bernard, who was our parish’s summer deacon last year. A reception for Fr. Bernard will be held at St. John the Baptist parish hall on Saturday beginning at 1:30 PM. Congratulations to Fr. Bernard and all our newly ordained priests!

Another young man who will be staying at the rectory this summer is Ross Gillespie. Ross is from East Bethel and had been recently living with a religious community while discerning joining their order. He has since left the order and is currently discerning a call to the diocesan priesthood. He will be moving into the rectory at the end of the month and will be staying with us throughout the summer.

Congratulations to Amelia White for winning FIRST PLACE in the Knights of Columbus statewide “Keep Christ in Christmas” poster contest! Amelia is a sixth grade student at St. John the Baptist School. She submitted her poster to our local Knights of Columbus parish council #14250 last December. Her poster was chosen from hundreds of entries and was awarded first place in the statewide contest for her age category, ages 11-14. The Knights of Columbus will present a check for $100.00 to Amelia this Tuesday at the conclusion of the school Mass. Her winning poster is shown below.