This morning I attended St. Anne-St. Augustine Catholic Church on Beech Street in Manchester. The website VICE recently featured this parish in an article: When Loving Thy Neighbor Means Saving Them from Deportation. The parish is multi-cultural and has had some members threatened with deportation under the Trump administration.

The parish is also a ministry of the Order of Friars Minor, Capuchin, which are a part of the Franciscan family.

Their pastor, Father Joe Gurdak, recently fell ill and is in the hospital. He has been a local champion for his parishioners, immigrants and refugees. From the parish bulletin:

Father Joe is still in the hospital in the ICU unit. He is in a coma and on a ventilator. He shows no signs of awareness of anyone being in the room with him. The doctors do not have a diagnosis.

We ask that you pray for Father Joe as he is seriously ill.

In his absence, Father Patrick Glavin (also a Capuchin) preached and celebrated the Mass.