A Message from Father Ketter, Our New Pastor

When my family arrived in Atlanta in 1983, the plan was for me and my siblings to attend local public schools, as we had always done in our previous places of residence. As providence would have it, our next-door neighbors’ children attended Marist School. And so it was that by the end of our first year in Atlanta, as I was preparing to graduate from middle school and begin my high school career, my parents announced that, having learned such good things about Marist School from our neighbors, they were going to have me apply for the ninth grade. I fought them tooth and nail. The change of schools would be my fifth in six years. I was growing weary of repeatedly “starting over,” adjusting to a new environment and making new friends. And I harbored very unappealing ideas about what life would be like at a Catholic School – goofy uniforms, lots of homework, and nerdy classmates. I contemplated intentionally bombing the entrance exam but, in the end, couldn’t bring myself to do it. However, I consoled myself with the certainty that kids way smarter than me, several of whom I knew were also applying to Marist, would take up all the spots in the freshman class, leaving no room for me. And so I was devastated the day my father, with great satisfaction, showed me my acceptance letter to the Marist ninth-grade class. I fled to my room, threw myself on my bed and began to sob. My life was over!

Fast forward 40 years, and this Marist graduate couldn’t be more pleased to begin his service to the families of Our Lady of the Assumption parish and schools, following in the footsteps of the many great Marist priests who came before, some of whom were his teachers while at Marist! Indeed, it was while a student at Marist that I had the initial inkling of God’s call to the holy priesthood, and it was the Marist priests and brothers who were the first to water that seed. As we read in Psalm 40, “How wonderous are your works, O Lord!”

Dear families of OLA, I consider myself very blessed to have been entrusted with the pastorate of this well established, thriving parish, preschool, and school community, one with such a rich legacy of worship, education and service in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, as stated in your mission statement. Together with our parochial vicar, Fr. Nicholas Le, also a Marist alumnus, Msgr. Richard Lopez and Fr. Robbie Cotta, I look forward to getting to know you over the coming months and discerning with you how the Lord is calling us to grow as disciples of his Son, Jesus. May his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Assumption, pray for us!