Thank you to our gala committee, our sponsors, guests, and advertisers.  Please join us in thanking all those took major sponsorships, those who sponsored tables, and those who placed ads in our program book.

Dear Friends of the Augustinians,On this Solemnity of Our Mother of Good Counsel, I wish you abundant blessings and wisdom

The Augustinians’ celebration of Anne and Don Berschback will be an evening 60 years in the making, starting from when a fifth-grade Don was mowing the summer grasses at St. Clare of Montefalco school in Grosse Point, MI.

Augustinians of the Midwest mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, March 21, 2017, with prayer, reflection, witness and action individually, in their communities and in their ministries. The Augustinians invite and encourage all who identify with Augustinian spirituality and traditions to do likewise.

Delivered by the Very Rev. Bernard C. Scianna, O.S.A., Ph.D., Prior Provincial of the Midwest Augustinians, on February 16, 2017 at St. Rita of Cascia Chapel at Cascia Hall, Tulsa, OK

For his work in the last eight years as Director of Augustinian Vocations alone, Father Tom McCarthy, O.S.A., deserves to be honored at this year’s gala. When you add to this his tenure as President of St. Rita of Cascia High School and his direction of numerous life-changing parish retreats, we become immeasurably indebted, as a family and community, to his selfless service.

At the Fifth Annual Augustinian Gala, on April 28, we will be celebrating the service of four very special honorees: Fr. Jim Friedel, O.S.A., Fr. Tom McCarthy, O.S.A., and Augustinian Affiliates Anne and Don Berschback. Over the next couple weeks we will be posting profiles of each of these honorees, and today, we are very pleased to begin with the Prior of St. Jude Parish, New Lenox, Fr. Jim Friedel.

The Augustinians mourn the loss of another brother, as Fr. Daniel Hartigan, OSA died on February 17, at Mercy Circle in Chicago. At age 99, Dan was the eldest Augustinian friar in the United States and Canada.

It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Fr. Bill Perez, OSA, passed away suddenly in his home at Cascia Hall's St. Augustine Monastery on Saturday afternoon.

Today the Universal Church joins in prayer for the men and women in consecrated life. The day was first inaugurated in 1997 by Pope John Paul II and is combined with the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2.