Fr Dan’s History Summary Fr Dan was born in Toronto, Canada. He became hard of hearing and began wearing hearing aids when he was in the first grade. He earned BS degree in Human Resources in 2008. His family relocated to Washington, MO., his father was offered a new job in Marketing. Fr Dan joined his family in 2008 after he graduated from college. He started thinking about the priesthood when he was in university studying Human Resources. He began going to Mass on his own for the first time and seeing other young Catholics living out their faith. He realized how little he knew about his faith even though he was Catholic all of his life. He began to pray more and learning more about our Faith in 2009. He met with Monsignor Rice, who was the Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of St Louis. He encouraged him to give seminary a try after he told him that he felt God was calling him to look into the priesthood. While growing up hard of hearing, he always struggled to hear what the priest was saying when he would go to Mass with his family. When he was in the seminary, he was aware that he was not the only one who was struggling and he wanted to help others who experience similar experiences to understand their faith better. During his second year of seminary, he met with Archbishop Carlson to discuss about his interest in working with the Deaf Community if God was calling him to be a priest. Archbishop Carlson was so supportive. Fr Dan attended Gallaudet University two sum-mers during his time in seminary in Washington DC with Fr Jerry at St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church for the Deaf, and taking ASL classes. He learned some ASL but a lot about Deaf cultures. He was ordained in May 2015.

This past year, after four years of priesthood, Archbishop Carlson met Al Alvord, who obtained MFP (Ministry Formation Program) certification. He asked Fr Dan if he would be willing to work with Deaf Catholics and work with Al. He was exciting for this opportunity!

Happy Fall! October is here now! What October means to us? October usually is enjoyable time of the year. The autumn seasons shows us the beautiful sights of colorful trees in many parts of the country. The temperature turns from hot to cooler, that invites people outdoors for nature walks, picking apples or pumpkins. Young children, even dogs, jump into a pile of leaves while parents are raking the leaves --- yes, more work for parents! For Catholics, why is month of October important to us? October has more than 15 feasts days but I will choose two which they are most popular feasts Guardian Angels and Rosary of Virgin Mary. God gives each person a guardian angel to assist us in our life’s difficulties. Also, we are encouraged to pray every day in morning and evening. The Rosary of Virgin Mary is very important and we are encouraged to pray the rosary every day for our protections and miracles. See page three of Rosary and Miracles stories.

CDM Coordinator Al Alvord 314 282 4941 VP aalvord@strichardstl@org

Pastor Fr Dan Kavanagh 314 232 9803 VP 314 432 6224 x1015 Emergency frkavanagh@strichardstl.org

ST RICHARD’S CATHOLIC CHURCH - 11223 SCHUETZ RD—CREVE COUER MO 63146—314 423 6224

Guardian Angels

Many of you already know about Our Lady of Fatima. Virgin Mary came to Portugal in 1917 to the three shepherd chil-dren named Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta once a month from May 13 until October 13. She asked them to pray the Ro-sary every day. Why? To bring peace to the world and end World War I. Not only for World War I, it cured people’s diseases and many others converted to accept Jesus and many more. There are so many miracle stories but I will share five stories below:

1. In 1871, a firestorm spread and destroyed through the woods and towns near Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The flames were out of control and killed over 2000 people. The popular Chapel, was built by Lambert – father of Adele Brise in 1880’s. Adele refused to leave the church. She and her people prayed to Virgin Mary the rosary to pro-tect that Chapel. The fire destroyed the area around the Chapel. Both the Chapel and people who were saying the rosary, were saved.

2. During WWII in 1945, eight Jesuit priests were living in a parish house less than one mile where the atomic

bomb was dropped on the town of Hiroshima in Japan. The church next to parish house was total loss and thou-sands of people were killed. The parish house was standing and none of eight priests suffered from radiation exposure. Many people suffered from radiation exposure…. why eight priests did not get radiation exposure? They prayed the rosary in faithfully in the house every day.

3. A man from New York who had fallen away from the Catholic Church and not gone to confession for many

years. He saw a presentation about Fatima. Then he took a rosary home and started praying the rosary and went to the sacraments again. Months later on September 11, 2001, he was in the World Trade Center when the ter-rorist attack took place. He saw a fireball and smoke and he left his office and tried running down the stairs but a large obstacle blocked and trapped him in the stairwell. He heard the screams of burning people inside the build-ing and unable to escape death. He stayed calm and grabbed his Rosary and started praying to the Blessed Mother for help. Within minutes, the firemen freed him and he was safe. His prayers was answered,

4. Another interesting story about a serial killer, Bundy, who killed 30 girls in 1973. A college girl promised her

grandmother that she would pray the rosary for protection. One night, Bundy entered the sorority house at Flori-da State University. He murdered two girls and he entered another room to kill a third girl with a baseball bat, he saw a rosary in her hand while she was asleep. He dropped his bat and fled. While he was on death row, he ex-plained to his spiritual counselor, Monsignor Karr that when he entered third girl’s room and he was planning to kill her. When he saw a rosary in her hand, some mysterious power prevented him from harming her.

5. In 1990’s Archbishop Carlson had bladder cancer and his doctor at the time told him to get a Will and to have his affairs in order. After the first surgery he went to the Mayo clinic for a second procedure. Following that he flew to the Sanctuary of our Lady of Fatima and prayed for healing. When the doctor at the Mayo clinic saw him later he said “You would never even know you had Bladder Cancer”’ In 2006, he did have the beginnings of Colon Cancer and had surgery at that time.

What interesting stories!!

Pray the rosary for many reasons such as protections, sick or dying family members, persons who have fallen away from Christ, family problems, financial problems, abortion, war and many more. We have to keep our faith and trust in God, The evils hate the rosary or hear “Hail Mary's” so the Rosary is our weapon to defend us from the evils . That Fat-ima is an example to show us that Blessed Mary encourages us to pray the Rosary every day. My mother takes the rosary everyday and she has been encouraging me to pray the rosary everyday. Honestly, I tried but I pray once or twice a month. It is not easy, but I am still trying to find time to pray the rosary every day. The aver-age time is about twenty minutes for everyone to complete the entire rosary. If you have had an experience by getting a miracle or answered prayers, please share with me, If you’re interested to learn the rosary, please contact me.

THE ROSARY AND THE MIRACLES