Dear Lord,

On this, the 86 th birthday of Father Bill, we remember that his favorite day of the year was not his birthday but your birthday. Father Bill always reminded us that on the “The Boss’s” birthday nothing but the very best would do.

And so today we gather to celebrate Father Bill’s birthday as he celebrated your birthday with the very best of our thoughts and prayers and memories.

We pray for the salvation of Father Bill’s soul and for your blessings from above. We pray that we will always remember Father Bill as your fearless ambassador on this earth teaching us the way of Christ. Father Bill’s daily example, in real time, showed us the love, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness that Christ in his daily walk exemplified.

We are thankful that Father Bill understood that the faint of heart are useless to Christianity and that he stood proudly for his beliefs, always mindful that those beliefs are to be a reflection of you.

We pray that we shall always hold close Father Bill’s prayers intended to help us find the joy God intends for us:

Forgiveness is for the strong. Revenge is reserved for the weak.
Help us not to blame others of ignorance if they do not agree with us.
When we fail, the people we love help us to ask pardon.
When people fail us give us the strength to forgive.
Help us to evangelize and bring people to you.

We pray we will live our lives as Father Bill prayed that we would, for all the world to see not in arrogance but as a reflection of Christ.

What you give, you take not away, what is yours is ours also, if we are yours.

In Jesus’s name we pray…Amen