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Bishop Robert McManus has named Fr. Juan Escudero, our Associate Pastor for the past three years, the new Administrator (“Pastor”) of St. Denis Parish in Douglas effective on July 1, 2018. He will succeed Fr. Ernie Allega who will be retiring.

Our annual Day of Service was held on Saturday, May 19th. Parishioners of all ages participated and despite the bad weather, we accomplished a lot!

"You are strangers and aliens no longer. No, you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God. You form a building which rises on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone."  These words written by St. Paul to the Ephesians almost 2000 years ago are an apt description of the Church from its beginning until this very day.  They reflect the universal nature of the Church which has carried out the Lord Jesus' command to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. [READ MORE]

All of the rooms and spaces at St. Mary's are witness to the many ways our community gathers for prayer, celebrations, service, meals, education, special events, and much more.  Often times the parish hall and meeting rooms transform in appearance to accommodate and fit the event or activity being hosted.  

Happy Easter. Today I join Fr. Juan and the parish staff of St. Mary's in wishing you and your families a joy-filled and faith-filled Easter.   [READ MORE]

St. Mary Parish held our second Light of the World Retreat last weekend with 25 people taking part.

The 8th Annual Lenten Fish Fry was another great event and evening for the St. Mary's community and beyond.  We are so grateful to the Fish Fry Committee for all the hard work and time that they put in during the weeks leading up to the FishFry.  Thank you to those that cooked the over 700 delicious meals and to those that served our guests. [READ MORE]

Through the generosity and support of St. Mary Parish parishioners, great progress has been made in rebuilding the chapel in Bokolo. Here are a few photo updates we received from Fr. Serge from a recent celebration.

We will host the 8th Annual Lenten Fish Fry. on Friday, March 9th! The event was started by parishioners Bob & Judi Terry. They lived in Pittsburgh, PA for many years and attended the Lenten fish dinners hosted by various churches in the area. When they moved to Shrewsbury, they noticed that the Friday Fish Dinners were not as common and decided to bring the tradition to St Mary’s.

The best team in football. The best song of the year. The Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl determine the best artist and football team. It was Bruno Mars last week - will it be Tom Brady this weekend? These much anticipated annual events certainly spark a great deal of interest and publicity. The excitement is built upon competition as so much in our world seems to be. Everyone seeking to be the best - the greatest - the one and the only. Winners and losers are everywhere.

St. Mary Parish is proud of its longstanding commitment to quality music for our liturgical celebrations. Our Sunday Masses, weddings, funerals, Christmas & Easter would not be such faith-filled and joy-filled celebrations without music and without the organ.

Fr. Marcin, St. Mary's former associate pastor, stopped by for a visit on Saturday and con-celebrated the 4:30pm Mass with Fr. Mike.

Our school community was honored to welcome Sister Judith Dupuy, Director of the Diocese of Worcester Haitian Apostolate, and students from Haiti to our school on Thursday. After a photo with Trax and lunch (hamburger, chips and fruit!) with our students, our special guests visited our classrooms, learned about our curriculum, our traditions and our commitment to our faith, thanks to Sister Judith's detailed translations.

Despite the frigid weather this past Saturday, sounds of clicking needles and warm conversation amongst the Prayer Shawl Ministry filled Mary’s room in the Pastoral Center. The purpose of this ministry is to offer a symbol of God's love for those who are ill or others who are in need of comfort and prayer through the gift of a prayer shawl. From the first moment a new shawl is started, the knitter begins praying for the recipient. Once completed, they are blessed and placed in a bag with a beautiful tag and prayers of comfort. Recipients are then wrapped in the prayer shawls that are created with love and intended to give its wearer a big hug from God through their hands.

Christmas & Epiphany: Gifts Given...and Received Today’s Feast of the Epiphany is the 12th Day of Christmas, so there is still time to give someone a Christmas gift if you haven’t had the chance. The season of Christmas will officially end tomorrow as the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord. But for most of us, all the gifts have been given and received, and we are now packing away Christmas for another year. [READ MORE]

The reconstruction of the Bokolo Chapel is well underway.  This chapel is one of the 11 chapel communities served by Fr. Serge and St. Michel's parish in Roche-a-Bateau, Haiti. The chapel had been completely destroyed in Hurricane Matthew in October of 2016.

Members of our 5:30 Mass Contemporary Ensemble reunite each year for Christmas Eve. Check out the photos and a short video of their rehearsal last week!

It seems that the season of Advent has just begun and already it is almost over. Especially with Christmas being on Monday making the Fourth week of Advent the shortest time it can be. Even though the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve fall on the same day, they are two separate liturgical days and are also separate days of obligation. Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent will follow the normal Sunday Mass schedule except there will be no 5:30 pm Mass. Listed here are Mass Times for this weekend.

On Saturday, December 16th, St. Mary's held its first Simbang Gabi Mass.  The Simbang Gabi tradition was introduced to the Philippines by the Spanish friars to allow the farmers to hear Mass before going to the fields early in the morning. More...

The Diocese of Worcester recently launched a new Communications Ministry for parishes that includes partnering with eCatholic to provide beautiful, mobile-friendly websites that are also integrated with Flocknote. We are excited to share that we just completed our conversion to the eCatholic platform we hope you like it!