Fr. Joe Mostardi, O.S.A., newly-appointed pastor at
Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish
Dear Parishioners,
As I prepare my first communication to all of you, I thought the best place to begin would be to introduce who I am and what I have been doing all these years of the ministerial priesthood.
As Fr. Liam mentioned, we were High school classmates from Msgr. Bonner. I entered the Augustinian formation program as a postulant in 1966, which was at the end of my junior year. So officially, I did not graduate from Bonner but Augustinian Academy on Staten Island. I was ordained in 1975 and was assigned to Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish on Staten Island. After a few years of learning how to be a priest, I was transferred to Mt. Augustinian Retreat House, which was our minor seminary on Staten Island.
In 1981, I was assigned as chaplain to Msgr. Bonner for 11 years. During those years, I was doing double duty. In 1982, I lived in the convent at OMGC with Fr. Peter Donohue, as we were both the vocation directors for the province. From there, I was also asked to be the pre-novice director until 1989. I was then assigned to the Campus Ministry at Villanova until 1992 when I returned to Our Lady of Good Counsel as the pastor for seven years.
In 1999, I was asked to develop the Augustinian Volunteer Program for our province. I was the director until 2008, along with an added assignment as Pastor of Old St. Augustine Church in Philadelphia in 2004. In 2009, I was sent back to Campus Ministry until 2015, when I began my second stint as the director of our pre-novitiate formation program, leading me to eventually take on the ministry of post-novitiate formation program in Chicago until this Monday, July 5, 2021, when I assume the duties as your pastor. This, along with my many other ministries in the past, have been both exciting and challenging.
I look forward to serving the people of the parish and turn to all of you for your help, support, and guidance as I settle into my new role. Every parish has a unique chemistry. It will take me some time to get to know you and understand the culture that has helped create this faith-filled community. As we all work together, I pray that we can continue the recovery process from Covid-19 while moving forward, meeting the needs of all who reach out to us.
Please pray for me as I will pray for all of you.
Sincerely,
Fr. Joe
