Dear Friends:

As August is just about over, the fall season is soon to be upon us and the normal pace of life will resume. This past week, many, if not most, of college and university students returned to campus, and this coming week, schools will open in Milford and most surrounding communities.

St. Mary’s School opens on Monday for students in kindergarten through the eighth grade, and next week, after Labor Day, the preschool students will return. As we launch into the 2025-2026 school year, I can say that our school is a shining jewel in the life of our parish. With just shy of 430 students enrolled, with a dedicated and highly qualified faculty and staff, and with an administration that keeps their hands and eyes on the pulse of modern education, St. Mary’s School is something of which all of us should be proud.

In a few weeks’ time, as well, the parish religious education program will resume. This, too, is an important part of the life of our parish, offering students who attend the public schools to receive a religious education and formation so that they will be equipped to face the life ahead of them grounded in a living, vital relationship with Jesus. It has become the fashion these days to not speak of religious education, or, as we used to call it, CCD. Instead, the trend is to call it faith formation” and rightly so. The goal of all religious education, be it in the parish school or in the faith formation program, is not primarily the imparting of religious facts and knowledge, as important as that is. Its primary goal is to help our young people to know Jesus and to enter into an intimate, loving relationship with him. This is a gift that will serve them not just for now, but for the rest of their lives. There is nothing more important that we can give them.

I want to thank, publicly and in the name of the parish. Deacon Dominic Corraro, who is the principal of St. Mary’s School, for all of the excellent work that he has done. His work and the efforts of the faculty and staff, have made our school, I think anyway, the best parish elementary school in the Archdiocese of Hartford. I also take this opportunity to thank the parents (and in some cases, the grandparents) of our students for the sacrifices they make to entrust their children to our care.

The Home and School Association deserves to be commended for the hard work that they do and all of the efforts they make to raise funds to support the school. Each year, through the fund-raising efforts of the HSA, they donate $120,000 to the operating budget of the school. Their efforts are so successful that this summer, the HSA provided funding to replace the playground at the school.

A word of gratitude is also in order for our new coordinator of religious education (faith formation), Lisa Monahan. Her enthusiasm is exceptional and she is full of new and creative ideas that can only help to strengthen our program. This year, classes for grades one through eight will resume on a full schedule and, at the same time, in line with the decision of Archbishop Coyne to move the celebration of Confirmation back to the eighth grade, she is making the needed adjustments to the program to accommodate that. She is also discussing with me an idea that I warmly welcome, a youth ministry program. Lisa has made some significant improvements in our program in just the year that she has been with us. Things will only improve and get better.

Have a good week!

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