Father Ray's farewell message to St. Ann

July 16, 2023

My dear St. Ann family,

As I look ahead to the new adventures that await me at St. Theresa of the Child Jesus in Sulphur, La., I do so with a profound sense of gratitude to you, this family of love. You have nurtured my priesthood, helped me grow more confident and I hope wiser personally and professionally. Your understanding, patience and forgiveness are profound gifts I will treasure.

Together we navigated the rough seas of needed today. St. Ann’s is a community of dedicated, intentional disciples and a visible sacrament of the presence of Christ. It is a field hospital of his pastoral care and a courageous herald of the Good News of God’s love for the poor and needy.

For more than 45 years, we La Salettes have been blessed to serve with you in the mission Jesus entrusts to us in Marietta and beyond. Together we have enriched this area with a deeper spiritual energy and a transforming vision that changes lives for Covid and helped each other stay safe and healthy. Your generosity and willingness to invest time, talent and treasure helped create a beautiful Parish Life Center. You offered yourselves to our parish mission statement, bringing Christ’s reconciling love into every aspect of our life and service together.

Because of you, our parish experience is one of hospitality, welcome, inclusion and care. With your devotion, our liturgy and sacramental life create experiences of closeness with God in all of life’s moments. Through healing prayer and eucharistic meals, you are a precious example of the images of the Church

the better, binds wounds, fosters unity and seeks to bring reconciling peace.

I pray you will, with your new pastor, Father Jim Henault, continue this good work that God is doing in this wonderful parish. I ask for your prayers as I enter the graced stream of service flowing through St. Theresa’s, that with the faith-filled lessons I have learned with you, we may shine the light of Christ more boldly, so that the world sees our good works and thereby glorifies God.

With love and a humble, grateful heart that will miss you very much,

Father Ray

Say thanks to Father Ray on July 30: 12:30pm Mass followed by a reception in La Salette Hall

Father Ray Cadran has had a couple of tours at St. Ann, serving here for 18 total years. He was appointed pastor of St. Ann's in May 2017 after six years in Chicago as director of theology formation for the Missionaries of La Salette. This is his third assignment at St. Ann's; he previously was associate pastor. He served the missionaries as novice and theology director in Washington, D.C., and has spent 30 years as pastor or associate pastor for a number of La Salette parishes in the United States and the United Kingdom. Father Ray was born in 1951 and raised in Lowell, Mass., leaving home at 17 to enter the La Salette seminary in Altamont, N.Y. He took his first profession of vows in 1974 and was ordained in 1978.

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