Jun 06, 2024

Greetings,

At the very tail end of this month, we will be bidding Fr. Bozek a fond farewell as he embarks on the next phase of his priestly adventure by becoming the next pastor of St. Barbara Parish, a Polish Parish in Cleveland located just off State Route 176. With that in mind, preparations were being made to run St. Sebastian as a one priest parish. Could we maintain all that we do with just one priest for at least a year? Those of you who stood in Confession lines while Fr. Bozek was in Poland might have wondered about this also.

Then I was contacted by the diocese that there was a priest that had dropped down on the diocese from out of the blue and they needed to send him somewhere and would I be open to having him here as our parochial vicar. Would I!? The tough part about it was that it was not yet official, and I could not tell anybody about the new priest until everything was settled. Nothing is official until it is official as they say.

However, that weekend, Sharon Dietrich, one of our parishioners and who also works with Poor Clare Sisters all over the world, came up to me before Mass and said, “I have contacted 300 Sisters and asked them to pray for the parish to see us through this difficult time.” I broke protocol and reported back to her that, apparently, the prayers of these sisters are pretty powerful as their prayers materialized a priest out of thin air!

This past week I received a letter from Bishop Malesic stating that on July 1, the day aȅer Fr. Bozek’s last day, The Reverend Michael Marcelli will become the 43rd parochial vicar of St. Sebastian Parish! He grew up in Euclid, but his family moved and began to attend Mass at a Youngstown Diocese parish and it was for that diocese that he was ordained. He then entered the Navy as a Catholic Chaplain for the Marines. His family largely ended up back in Cleveland and now he desires to incardinate in our diocese in order to be closer to his family.

It is a five-year process to incardinate into another diocese. After permission is received from both bishops to move in that direction, the receiving diocese has five years to decide if they will receive the new priest or not. In order to discern this move, Fr. Marcelli will receive two, two-year assignments in our diocese, the first being here at St. Sebastian.

So, we have a lot of change coming our way and a lot to be thankful for. Please keep Fr. Bozek, Fr. Marcelli and our parish (and our seminarians and hopeful seminarians) in your prayers as we look forward to the future in hope of God’s providence.

IN OTHER NEWS:

PROCESSION: Thank you to everybody who participated in our Annual Corpus Christi Eucharistic Procession. There was a hole in the cloud cover over Akron just long enough for our outdoor devotions. It was absolutely perfect. And what a joy it was as Fr. Bozek and I, the Knights of Columbus and our 20 or so servers and seminarians were walking up Elmdale Avenue and I could look across the playgrounds toward Mull Avenue and could not see the end of the procession extending up the street behind Zwisler Hall! What a great witness! Many blessings to all of you.

TICKETS: Watch for tickets becoming available for two events that sold out last summer! June 20 is the Brick Street Jazz and Wine Festival, and the Second Pig Roast and Bourbon Tasting is coming up on August 2. Once the tickets are gone - they are gone!

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck