May 3, 2026

April 28, 2026

Dear Friends,

We are still celebrating the days of our Easter! I have been blessed since our Easter Vigil, just a month ago, with so many wonderful moments to acknowledge and feel blessed because of the life of Jesus Christ!

Since I last wrote a column for our bulletin, I was at our annual Priests’ Convocation. The highlight for myself and so many of our priests was being in the presence of our new Bishop. Bishop John Bonnici was so gracious in sharing some history about himself and that he is here to walk beside us and be present to us as a brother. His words were a welcome breath of these Easter days!

This same week, I was privileged to be with Bishop Bonnici, welcoming Cardinal Tobin from the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. Cardinal Tobin’s nephew attends the U of R, and the Cardinal was a guest presider at Mass with a presentation to follow. He spoke of Pope Francis and Pope Leo. My good friend Father Brian Cool is the Chaplain for the U of R and R.I.T. Father Cool invited our support group for dinner and the evenings’ celebrations. Cardinal Tobin was as gracious and welcoming as our new Bishop! If you are not familiar with Cardinal Tobin, check out 60 Minutes from a few weeks ago and his interview with Norah O’Donnell.

This past week, on April 29th, we celebrated a great Doctor of the Church, Saint Catherine of Siena. Her wisdom and witness to the Risen Lord blesses me continuously with her words, “Be everything you are meant to be and set the world on fire.” I pray that I follow our Lord in being everything He desires of me.

And this weekend, we hear in our Gospel that those who follow Jesus will do the great things Jesus did, and even greater things. Reading those words, I always marvel in the confidence that Jesus has in you and me.

We celebrate this weekend with some very special young people who are making their First Communion! How exciting to have been with 17 individuals coming into the church at our Easter Vigil and now just about a month later to be among all these young individuals saying AMEN to the Body of Christ! 

Indeed, for me, Easter is still vibrant and before all of us!   This Thursday, on May 7th, our young people will be coming to Sacred Heart Cathedral for the Sacrament of Confirmation.  These wonderful people from our parishes will be among the first to receive this sacrament from our new Bishop, John Bonnici. The gift of the Holy Spirit will further enliven the lives of these young people. I still recall being confirmed by Bishop James Kearney, and what a special evening it was for me, my family and my friends. I pray our soon to be confirmed will have the same joys and love for the Lord as I do for this very moment.

Let us pray for our new faithful who are joining us at the table of the Lord and those who will be confirmed in the coming week! As they bless us with their witness and faith, may we bless them witnessing us being everything we are meant to be modeling Jesus Christ, our Risen Saviour! 

May we keep proclaiming the Lord with our Alleluias!!!

Blessings,

Rob

 

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Father Rob's Weekly Message

June 14, 2026

June 9, 2026
Dear Friends, June is a month that has many of us involved in several types of celebrations. I shared that last weekend I was blessed to be with my friend, Father Clarence Rumble, to join in mass and celebration of his 40th anniversary to the Ordination of the Priesthood. We have been blessed friends for 49 years and I am so grateful! This past week, on Wednesday, we welcomed our new members to join our Parish Pastoral Council and bid with deep gratitude to those whose term has ended. Joining us in the coming three years are Keith Bock, Christine Spring, Tom Kilian, and Kevin Marren. Their alternates are Bill Hulbert and Dade Kelly. We will be excited to welcome Matteo Smith as our Youth Representative. How blessed we are by all these six individuals willing to be servants for our Parish Pastoral Council. I am also grateful to all those who were willing to be candidates for our council and were not selected this time. I pray they will continue to be present to our parishes serving with their compassion and love. I am also very grateful for the council members completing their terms: Tom Cincebox, Charlene Weeks, Bob Ciccone, Rebecca Hartman, and Michael Musa. Each of these individuals have brought blessings to us in their years of service. God be with them now and forever. The days are blessed with many graduations. I’ve had a preschooler at morning Mass share with me his excitement about graduation! For him, our kindergarteners, grammar school and middle school graduates, our high school graduates, our college and university graduates, and those preparing to take exams for their doctoral dreams, God Bless each and every one of you! I am grateful to know the blessings, from our precious preschoolers, to those who are preparing to make our society and world better with their visions and gifts! God is so good and how fortunate I am to see this goodness in our young people! June is here and gifting us with so much to celebrate and appreciate from our Lord! You are in my joy and celebration of faith! Thank you for being present to me and our sisters and brothers! Blessings to all, Rob

June 7, 2026

June 2, 2026
Dear Friends, This weekend our church celebrates the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Many of us will recall this day was often referred to as Corpus Christi Sunday for years. We are so fortunate to have the joy of our faith, and celebrating the sacred liturgy of the Mass, to receive in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of our Lord! My very dear friend, Father Clarence Rumble, will be celebrating on Sunday his fortieth anniversary of Ordination. Clarence and I met in 1977 while at the Becket Hall Seminary. We quickly became friends and so did our parents, Kate, Clarence, Betsy and Paul. They had a great bond and the four of them had a great sense of humor, joy, faith in the church, and of course in their sons. Our parents celebrated with one another many joys, some heavy heartaches, and as the years moved ahead, the funerals of one another. Clarence and I were blessed with so many years our parents had time with one another and us. I’ll be forever grateful. Clarence is a priest in the Diocese of Syracuse and is Pastor of Holy Family Church in Endwell and Maine (not the state, but Maine, New York). He is a fabulous man of faith and has led his parishes with great his faith, love, devotion and living the Gospel as a priest. This is a perfect weekend to celebrate Clarence’s priesthood because he faithfully brings the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus to so many people. I am blessed to call him my friend for almost 50 years. He is my brother. I will be with Clarence for this weekend. Please say a prayer for him, for our church, for the future of vocations, and that we might all realize what a gift we have in the Body and Blood of Jesus! Blessings to all, Father Rob

May 31, 2026

May 26, 2026
Dear Friends, I hope you were able to enjoy last weekend and remember all the gifts of life; given for democracy for our nation, and nations throughout the world. God bless all the veterans who sacrificed their lives so you and I might live freely this very day. It seems many believe the season of summer begins with the arrival of Memorial Day. Officially, I know the season begins in June. Nonetheless, we look forward to days of warmth, and planning for graduations, end of school years, being able to take time away from work, perhaps a wedding or two, new life being born into our world, and joyful surprises we are not even aware of at this moment. Your Parish Staff is not only looking to summer ( “I have a lot of PTO coming”, who might they be?), but we are planning the parish calendar for the remainder of this year and the coming year. It is such a reminder of how fast time passes. For several years now many of our Parish Staff have been coming together to keep our two parishes, Saint Catherine of Siena and the Church of the Transfiguration, vibrant and vital for the future. That is our vision and mission. My goal is to support the mission of our parishes, and the Parish Staff, to be prayerful in becoming what the Lord is calling us to be, “ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, APOSTOLIC”. Our Parish Council is addressing this vision and mission. The Parish Staff, is committed to serve as the Gospel of Jesus calls us to serve in following Him. You will see things unfolding in our Parish Staff and visions of your Parish Pastoral Council. Our future looks and will be bright! I am so happy for the response of individuals willing to serve on Parish Pastoral Council these coming years. I want to thank Bob Ciccone, Tom Cincebox, Rebecca Hartman, Michael Musa, and Charlene Weeks for serving the council these past years. You have been a gift as we bring our two councils and parishes together! You are a remarkable piece of history! I also want to welcome our newly chosen members, Keith Bock and Christine Spring from St. Catherine, and Tom Kilian and Kevin Marren from Transfiguration. Your presence will be a breath of fresh life and blessing as we grow together as “ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, APOSTOLIC” faith community! Thank you also to our alternates, Bill Hulbert from St. Catherine, and Dade Kelly from Transfiguration. So, I am blessed by many around me who love the church, and are visionary, and are seeing where the road ahead of us is leading. Please continue to keep all of us in prayer, as we do all of you. Blessings, Father Rob