Dear Friends,

We are excited to share the happy news with you that Father Brent Otto S.J. will be joining us as our priest in residence beginning next week. We are blessed to have Father Brent with us through New Year’s during this special time of rejuvenation and reflection. Father Brent’s devotion to our community is truly an immeasurable gift. Father Brent’s appointment is further fulfillment of the promise that the Cardinal made to us to minister to our community and help us rebuild. We look forward to realizing the mission of St. Anselm through the efforts of all of you with Father Brent’s leadership.

Yours in Christ,
Don Charsky, Cynthia Deysher, Jamie Hanson, Chris Kenney and Gail Trainor
St Anselm Lay Leadership Team

A personal message from Father Brent:

19 October 2020

Dear St. Anselm’s Community,

You know how much you have meant to me, since my earliest memories! That is why, when I heard the Church would be closing, I just had to come to lament and pray with you on October 3rd. Who would have thought then that the situation would change entirely?! October 3rd became a celebration of reopening instead! This came to pass only by God’s grace,your prayers and hard work, and the good will of Cardinal O’Malley. Praise God!

It may take a little while before Cardinal O’Malley finds a chaplain to serve St. Anselm for the long term. Within a couple days of our reopening mass, I was approached by some parishioners and Fr. DiPerri, the Cardinal’s delegate, to inquire if I might consider helping St. Anselm’s on a part-time basis in the interim.I was very moved and humbled by the request, that you would have such faith and trust in me. I took the matter to prayer, and to conversations with my Jesuit superiors, spiritual director, and bosses in the university. The result of this discernment was an affirmative, “Yes!” I will indeed be able to be your priest at St. Anselm’s for the interim. I am able to commit through New Year’s Let us pray that by then Cardinal O’Malley will have found a chaplain for you. I am delighted to be joining you and to have the opportunity to serve the community which has been so formative and supportive to me over the years!

So, it is time to reopen, to build up our community, and to reach out and invite more people to join us at the feast! I am full of excitement to begin this journey with you! The next two months are an especially blessed time –as we remember and mourn those we have lost with All Saints & All Souls, give gratitude for all the blessing around us at Thanksgiving, and pray throughout Advent with the scriptures of God’s saving promise, fulfilled in Jesus and celebrated at Christmas. We will enter this blessed time together. May this be our prayer: that Jesus remain our stronghold, our rock, our companion — at the center of our every endeavor as a community!

In Christ’s Joy,

Fr. Brent, sj