Hello, friends: 

Please join me in congratulating our children as they celebrate their First Holy Communion this weekend! I’m sure that you’re as proud of them as I and look forward to seeing them grow in their relationship with the Lord Jesus. I’d like to thank the RE teachers, specifically those who have helped shape and form our children, the last few years. Special thanks to the 1st Communion teachers: Regina, Veronica and Carla for their time and effort and the loads of energy that they so generously share with our young ones. 

Please keep our university students, faculty and staff in prayer as they wind down another academic semester. Special congratulations to all students who will be graduating from either NMSU or DACC this year! Campus ministry is hosting a mass with reception on Friday, May 8, at 5:30. If you have any questions please feel free to contact either Sal or Mona. Also, CM is planning a few end of year activities this week; look for those events with further details in either the parish bulletin or on line on either the website or the Facebook page. 

Finally, thanks to the parish pastoral council and all those who helped with the distribution and execution of the survey this past weekend. We had well over 1000 survey responses and we anticipate the initial official report in about 8-12 weeks. Stay tuned! 

Fr. Ray 

Good morning, friends: 

This weekend the church is asking us to intentionally pray for vocations, specifically to the priesthood, diaconate, religious life or societies of apostolic life. On this Good Shepherd Sunday I'd like to share very good news with the parish. 

Last week Bishop Cantu officially accepted one of our university students, Francis Gyau, as a seminarian for our Diocese. Francis is from Ghana and will be graduating with a masters degree in Math at the end of the semester. Please join me in congratulating Francis and please keep him and all of our other seminarians in your prayers. 

A recent statistic from a survey of youth and young adults on vocations found that over 500,000 of our youth and young adults have seriously considered a vocation. Parents, godparents and grandparents: have you considered planting the tiny seed of a possible vocation in the lives of your children and grandchildren? Please take the time and "risk" asking the question, knowing that you may never see the fruit of your work. Let us pray that the Lord will continue to bless our local church with an abundance of men and women who will respond with generous hearts and hands, in service to God's people! 

Fr. Ray 

Dear friends, 

I’d like to share a couple of important messages; the first, the hike and mass that was scheduled for next weekend has been postponed for a future date. The second, our parish community will have an opportunity to participate in a survey, next weekend, and I’m encouraging as many folks to consider filling out the form. We’re working with CARA, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which is operated out of Georgetown University, as a one way to measure our parish life. The results of the parish survey will help both our Parish Pastoral Council as well the Visioning Committee in their work with strategic planning. 

If you have any questions please feel free to call the office or email me at fr.ray@stalbertnewmancenter.org. 

Fr. Ray