Pavlik_ 061508

I recently joined my ordination class in celebrating our five-year anniversary of being priests, and while five years is not generally considered a milestone anniversary (the gift for five years is wood — a far cry from rubies or gold), it seems like decades for me. The most wonderful part is I have been blessed to spend my five years here at St. Olaf. In about my sixth month here, Archbishop Flynn came downtown to say the Mass for our television broadcast. He asked me how I liked my assignment and I told him I loved it here very much and could I please just stay here. He appreciated my zeal and said I must be willing to share my gifts with others when it came time to transfer. Newly-ordained priests are usually transferred after a couple of years. Well, not only did I stay, but in three years Archbishop Flynn installed me as pastor.

The transition from associate to pastor has been wonderful. Like any part of life, there have been a fair number of challenges and stresses. I continue to learn more and more each day and am continually encouraged by the outpouring of prayers and kindness from the people in the parish which is precisely the reason I loved our parish from the start and wanted to stay.

When I was working before entering seminary, I celebrated my fifth anniversary with the company and received my honorary “five-years-of-service tie tack” before I made the decision to leave the job to enter the seminary. Not long before I announced I would be resigning, my boss took me aside and told me his theory about longevity in management. He had experienced that after a person had been in a job for about six months, they were pretty confident they had it all figured out. But it was not until five years in the job that one was really able to fully grasp the nature of the work and realize how little they really knew back when they had been on the job for only six months. The ironic part is I think he was telling me this to encourage me in planning my next five years of service, when in reality I was looking for a way to tell him I was resigning to pursue priesthood...

As I celebrate my fifth year here at St. Olaf, I realize I am just as happy to be here now as I was in the winter of 2003 when I told the Archbishop I wanted to stay. I must admit my former boss was right. I see now how much I have grown and how much more I understand about priesthood and service to the Lord, among so many other things, than I did in those early months of my assignment. The best news is I continue to learn each day and the vitality, diversity and location of our parish make for some very exciting days indeed! All these things work together to help make St. Olaf a place where it seems that everyone who comes here wants to stay!

The staff and I are looking ahead to some fun events in the coming months. One is a parish-wide celebration this fall (full details are still in the planning stages, but keep an eye on the bulletin for developments). Another idea is a short education series late this summer on the letters of St. Paul to celebrate the coming year which is dedicated to the apostle Paul beginning in the end of June. These, along with everything else we are able to do with our great staff and your involvement, will offer us much to do in the coming months to celebrate our parish.

As always, I want to thank all of you again for all you have done to encourage me with your kind words, patience and support. God bless you all!