A Note From Our Pastor: May 24, 2026

I’m pleased to announce that we will have two seminarians with us for part of the summer: Matthew Dion and Bradley Miller. You may recall that last year, Patrick Gitau was with us. It’s a great gift and sign of life to have seminarians present and among us. As Matthew and Bradley get settled, they’ll have the opportunity to fill in the details of which parish they’re from, what drew them to formally discern priesthood, where they go to seminary and how far along they are in their formation.

As they move in this (past) week, our plan is that Matthew will live at St. Philomena’s rectory with me, and Bradley will live with Fr. Ben at St. Thomas. More to be determined about how they will be involved this summer.

I remember well my summer assignments as a seminarian. I spent one summer at St. James Cathedral (supervised by Fr. Michael Ryan) and another at St. John the Evangelist in Seattle (supervised by Fr. Bill McKee). One summer was spent going through a program called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), which occurs in a hospital setting (Swedish Medical Center, First Hill Seattle), intended to nurture pastoral skills and interior reflection, from learning to interact with patients and interacting with other CPE students. I also spent two summers in Mexico (Cuernavaca and Puebla) learning Spanish—though not enough!.

The other experience I had outside of the regular seminary setting was my Pastoral Year—an internship year. I was assigned to St. Anthony in Renton, supervised by Fr. Gary Zender.

I benefitted from all these experiences, and I trust that the people of St. Philomena and St. Thomas will remain in the hearts and minds of Matthew and Bradley as they continue to discern and prepare.

On a different note, I would like to invite a few folks to consider being part of our Parish Finance Council, both St. Philomena’s and St. Thomas’. It’s especially helpful if you have experience in any of the following: business management or ownership; accounting; banking or investing. I have no doubt that some of you have this background. I should also add that currently we have no one from our Hispanic communities. As such a big part of our parish population and parish life, it’s very important that members from our Hispanic community offer perspective and provide a voice.

Our St. Thomas group currently meets quarterly, and our St. Philomena group meets every six or eight weeks. It’s not a big demand on your time. Eventually, these groups will unite, when St. Philomena and St. Thomas become one canonical parish, but we are not at that point yet. Please contact me if you are curious or open to contributing to the parishes in this way.

Yours in Christ,

Father Todd O. Strange