Dear Parishioners of All Saints, Praised be Jesus Christ!  After three weeks “on the job,” it is great to be actually functioning as your pastor. Australia was great, and my World Youth Day experiences will occupy space in these pages in the near future. However, I would like to take a little time to introduce myself first. When I became a priest in 1996, I was surprised by the interest people took in the mundane things of my life like hobbies, food preferences, personal history, and the like. I discovered over time that such matters are often the subject of conversation among people of faith and goodwill. With the number of “biographies” that float around, official and unofficial, many reading this may know more about me than I know about my-self. You can determine if that is a good or bad thing. A child of the 70's, I am the youngest of eight children, and attended St. Peter's School in North St. Paul and Hill-Murray High School in Maplewood, where my life revolved around my friends, our parish, and whatever sport was in season. Being a contrarian and from a hockey family, basketball became my favorite sport, and it continues to be, although I appreciate most sports as leisure time activity, and continue to hold season tickets for men?s basketball at the U of M. I made a few three point shots with some junior high students a few years ago, and a rumor began that I was some type of all-star in my youth. I was actually a pretty average player on a decent team in high school. God has been very good to me in the priesthood. My first assignment was at Epiphany in Coon Rapids, and I was able to be there for five years. I learned much from the people and the legendary pastor, Fr. Reiser, about becoming a man of faith and what it means to shepherd people. I loved being with the people, whether in the sacraments, at school, parish activities or the hospitals and nursing homes. I was shocked then when Archbishop Flynn appointed me vocation director in 2001. It did not seem like a good fit. Seven years later, I am very grateful for that experience working with men entering the seminary during a very good time for vocations in our archdiocese. During that time, I also functioned as administrator of St. John's in St. Paul for two years, where I learned what it means to make decisions for a parish. Most of my family are still in the Twin Cities, and I spend much of my free time with friends often at sporting events. The onset of adulthood has helped me expand my horizons and I enjoy other things like reading a good book, a good (but not too loud) concert, even a well done play, and spending quiet time with friends and their families. I am especially grateful to Fr. Piché, who was so gracious to me in the transition, and to Fr. Joppa who covered so much of the duty while I was away in Australia. He went way above and beyond the call of duty. I have huge shoes to fill, and a great associate who will keep me on my toes. God knows how to keep me from being complacent! I look forward to meeting you and working with you to make Jesus and His Church known in the hearts of people in the south metro area. Sincerely in Christ, Fr. Tom Wilson  08.03.2008 As I begin at All Saints, I am grateful for the opportunity to serve you. The staff has been very kind and welcoming to me, and I am impressed by the friendliness of the people in the community I have met. I am plowing through a file of activities in the parish, and look forward to getting to know as many of the people associated with them as possible. As the youngest in the family and with the "W" in my last name, I am used to being last. I was the last ordained in my class, I was the last to leave my first assignment, and I am the last to be appointed a pastor. Given that the last shall be first in the Kingdom of Heaven, I am very comfortable at the bottom of the list. I did not retire from the NBA to become a priest. It was actually from accounting. After getting my undergraduate degree in accounting from the U of M and passing the CPA exam, I worked in internal auditing with a large Minneapolis banking company. I worked there for five years, while still hemming and hawing about whether God was calling me to be a priest. After many years, I finally discerned a call to the priesthood, and left my job (a very difficult thing) to enter the seminary. The journey was not always smooth, but God provided the grace to weather the storms and brought me to the altar in 1996, and I live with no regrets. The most important fact about me is that I love being Catholic and I love being a priest, and it was an unexpected, but long in coming, call from God that brought me to the altar. I live in gratitude for that call each day. I awake every morning and head to a vocation and not a job, a privilege few people share.