Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I have a picture of my father and my younger brother taken in London in the 1950’s. My father is holding tightly my two year old brother’s hand as they walk along a busy Lon- don street. We were there for the wedding of my father’s youngest sister. At two my brother was prone to run away into nooks and crannies and my father was holding on to him tightly. My father was a big man with a gentleness and a kindness that stays with me to this day over forty years since he died. We rarely took formal vacations but he would take days throughout the year when we would head out for the day and have fun. My cousins still talk of his hospitality and the special treats that were part of their childhood when my parents would take them out for after- noon tea over the Christmas season. Al these are part of the memory of my father . He was firm and fair but he ex- pected the same from you. He was a great story teller but rarely did we hear anything of the hardships of the first world war in Germany. He died young, and that for all of us was a great tragedy as there were many stories left untold and many questions still to be asked. This weekend as we celebrate Father’s Day let us remember with prayer and with pride the fathers who shaped our lives their strengths and weakness, the ways they challenged us to look at our world, their ability to let us go and plow our own furrow. Let us thank them and pray for them and ask the Lord to give them a place with the saints in heaven. The journey continues, Fr Karl