I welcome you to Our Lady of the Fields Catholic Church’s website.  My name is Fr. Gene Nickol, and I have been here as your pastor since January of 2003.  We have a wonderful, warm parish family that has a well deserved reputation in our community for service.  Almost everyone volunteers to help, from cooking for the homeless to teaching or aiding in our Faith Formation Programs to helping with our weekend worship; there are more than 80 outreaches and ministries.  Please check out this web page and our weekend bulletin and I am sure you will find something for everyone from children to our senior members.  Our Mission is to respond to Jesus’ call to friendship with God.  We rejoice in the knowledge of the saving message of the Gospel and seek to share the gift of God’s love with others, especially those in need.  Our worship, ministries and programs flow from our response to the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel:  “I call you my friends.”

I am ably assisted here at the parish by Fr. Jojo Opalda, who is from the Philippines and is here living at the rectory and studying Canon Law at Catholic University.  We also have deacons helping on weekends:  Al Kosla and Ed Stoops are retired but help as needed; Tony Grillo assists regularly and Bill Walker is visiting with us a couple of weekends each month.  Other weekend celebrants include Fr. Pat Rogers who grew up in the parish and is a Jesuit at Georgetown University.  Also Franciscan Fathers Brad and Martin come over from the Franciscan Priory in Washington, DC and help us with Masses.

You will notice that since mid-August we have been under construction.  We are not making major changes to our ‘little country church’ but are expanding to accommodate our growing parish family.  The project includes a 40 seat Adoration Chapel, a new patio outside of church for us to gather, 100 more seats along the north side of church and in the choir loft, a ‘quiet room’ for parents to use with little children, a Reconciliation Room, five new offices,  and a new expanded conference room.  In addition to this much needed space, we are also meeting an Anne Arundel County requirement for our buildings to have a fire suppression system.