Fr. Patrick Mary Leaves DC to Head to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament | EWTN News Nightly

and finally tonight some exciting news for the chaplain of our ewtn office here in washington d.c father patrick mary of the franciscan missionaries of the eternal word is headed to hansville alabama he will be assigned to the shrine of the most blessed sacrament father patrick has been in washington for seven years and during his time here he has been very busy helping with the coverage of the march for life and celebrating mass and hearing confession in the chapel several times a week earlier this week i had the pleasure of talking with father patrick about his time in dc and his next journey in life and father patrick mary joins us now father patrick thank you so much for being here so good to be with you thank you tracy it's good to be here as we get ready to make a move i know we're really going to miss you here and really we're so excited for you and your new adventure can you talk a little bit more about the shrine of the blessed sacrament and maybe what your day will look like there sure so the shrine of the busted sacrament for our viewers or those who might not be familiar it's it was built by mother angelica and the nuns moved in in december of 1999. it's a beautiful shrine dedicated to our lord and the blessed sacrament as they have adoration there that's where our poor claire is the perpetual adoration currently live so that'll be my next assignment down there and um so we'll be on the um the rotation of priests that are serving there we'll have masses each day hear confessions we get a good number of pilgrims that come to visit both ewtn and the shrine which is an hour away so to be there to uh to greet the the pilgrims who come we give talks catechesis talks or spiritual talks to the the the visitors the pilgrims who come so to be able to greet them so a part of it will be serving there at the shrine i'll also continue to work with vocations with our community so coordinating interviewing young men discerning coordinating visits to come down and visit our friar in alabama as they're discerning so those are some of the main events and the main assignments that i'll be having down there oh that's so wonderful and exciting i know a lot of people are viewers are probably wondering will you will you still be celebrating mass on ewtn sure our friars that are in hanceville usually are on some type of rotation to have the televised mass we are an hour away so at this point i haven't seen the next schedule for the next month but some of them would come down like once a week or once a month or something so occasionally i'd probably come down to ewtn as well but yeah fires in both locations so good um i know a lot of people are probably curious about this i know i was and we talked about it but can you talk about your vocation journey with us sure sure briefly i grew up in a very large family i'm the oldest of eight children i came from a military family my dad was army career we moved around quite a bit i was born in florida we ended up back in florida and it was when i was a college student that my family i was going to college in miami my family decided to do something different for christmas one year so we drove up to alabama my mom had been familiar she watched ewtn she was greatly followed and greatly loved mother angelica and it was the midnight mass so i just finished my freshman first semester and we went to the shrine of the blessed sacrament we went to the midnight mass there and priesthood was nowhere on my mind or my heart going into that mass and just the lord used that mass just the the beauty um the reverence that experienced the the nun singing the beautiful gregorian chant and polyphony just everything just the reverence during that mass just really moved me and the lord used that to really draw me i had a very strong pull and draw to the priesthood that something happened in the midst of that mass so much so that after the mass i told my mom i think i might be called to the priesthood and of course she was very very happy and supportive but that kind of started my my journey and on our way back down to florida we stopped by ewtn and it was in the gift shop that my mom asked me said do you want to talk to a priest and i hesitated i didn't know i was going to tell a priest but i said okay and so uh they called the the friary and the vocation director came down we started talking about uh discernment and about the the franciscan way of life and um it was really through reading about saint francis and then making the total consecration to our lady by saint louis de montfort which father anthony who was our vocational time he had given me that that book he said you know what don't rush it keep in touch and then we'll see how things go so i went back down to miami and my spring semester i read and made the total consecration to our lady which changed everything for me that's interiorly i think at that point i was ready to do whatever god was calling me to do so i set up a visit and uh visited so it's been about 20 it was about 20 years ago that i visited and uh didn't know what to expect i didn't know anything about religious life and it was like the best five days of my life just the joy the peace that i experienced there the friars were great basketball players which i loved i grew up playing a lot of sports i just felt a great sense of peace and so that kind of really started uh my discernment and i'd enter a year later in 2002 and time has flown it's been we're going on 20 years now but it's been a great experience and a great blessing we are so excited for you we're really going to miss you here i know that you know that um would you mind maybe sharing some of your memories here in washington d.c with everybody sure you know when i came up here so originally as i mentioned came up here to do some further studies and then part time and then do some other assignments as well for our community and i remember when i first came up here as the fall of 2014 and i believe at that time they were just finishing the chapel and it was it was beautiful so we just started we got the permission from the archdiocese and just started the masses so to see you know came up here basically when we started the chapel here so kind of fit in it's been seven years but just see the network expand and grow with the new programs additional programs uh being able to um you know through through the years uh being able to also help with the march for life coverage which was a great experience as well but just being here and seeing all the employees go through to and just growing their love for the lord and just the the zeal the desire that that we have here that this ewtn mission has to to bring the joy of the gospel of truth to the world it's been a very strengthening encouraging experience for me and just to see how the network just keeps growing and thriving it's it's very encouraging yeah well it has been such a blessing to have you here with all of us and and speak for everyone when we say that we're really going to miss you but we're so very excited for you and your new adventure thank you so much tracy i miss you all too and i look forward to visiting in the future we hope you do thank you so much father patrick and god bless you thank you tracy you

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Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021