From Aug. 15-19, Assumption Parish in Morristown held its Vacation Bible School in the parish center behind the church and outside guided by the theme of “Monumental: Celebrating God’s Greatness.” Each morning campers walked through a make-believe desert in the parish center decorated with models or images of cacti, sunbaked animal bones, and coyotes.
Bishop Zsolt Marton of the Diocese of Vac in Hungary was main celebrant and homilist at a Mass in St. Stephen Magyar Church in Passaic on Aug. 28 in honor of the Feast of King St. Stephen of Hungary. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney was a concelebrant of the Mass. Also concelebrating the Mass in Hungarian with parts in English was Father Laszlo Balogh, St. Stephen’s pastor, and Father Ivan Csete, a retired Hungarian priest, of St. Stephen Parish in New York City.
In opening their hearts in response to the humanitarian crises caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the faithful in parishes of the Diocese have generously contributed $314,000 as of last month to the diocesan Collection for Ukraine Relief. These funds have been divided between Ukrainian relief efforts by Caritas Internationalis and the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, said Jolanta Londene, controller in the diocesan Finance Office.
Altar servers in the Diocese are invited to Altar Servers Day at the Evangelization Center at St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison on Saturday, Sept. 17, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., which will end with a Mass and Eucharistic procession led by Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney. This event is designed help young people grow in their appreciation of the Eucharist and of their role at Mass and help them start to think about their vocation, during a day that mixes faith, food, and fun.
“Jesus calls us by name; he looks us in the eye and he asks: Can I count on you?” Pope Francis said in a homily addressed to the College of Cardinals and its new members on Aug. 27. “The Lord,” he said, “wants to bestow on us his own apostolic courage, his zeal for the salvation of every human being, without exception. He wants to share with us his magnanimity, his boundless and unconditional love, for his heart is afire with the mercy of the Father.”
As the new school year begins, there is no doubt that there is nationwide movement among parents to be more directly involved in their children’s education and to what is being taught to their children in schools. However, pushing back against parents are teachers unions, like the New Jersey chapter of the National Education Association (NJEA), which recently released a video on You Tube in which parents concerned about curriculum materials in classrooms are labeled as “extremists.”
In the years that I served as pastor of a parish, one of the responsibilities that I came to appreciate and prioritize more and more each year was the call to collaborate with parents in the religious education of their children. There was a section from the Catechism that I would often share at parent meetings:
The Sisters of Christian Charity celebrated the 173rd anniversary of the founding of the congregation and the anniversaries of 15 sisters during a Mass on Aug. 21 celebrated by Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney in the Chapel of Mary Immaculate at Mallinckrodt Convent in Mendham.
Sister Lucia Sanchez made her first profession of holy vows as a Sister of Christian Charity on Aug. 16, 2022, in Mendham at the Chapel of Mary Immaculate in Mallinckrodt Convent, the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Christian Charity. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney celebrated the Mass.
Assumption College for Sisters in Denville is inviting Catholics, especially lay young adults, to deepen their knowledge of the faith by joining “Spiritual Theology,” a new online course now in progress, which started on Aug. 24 and will continue on Dec. 16. Taught by Mark Tosso, who has served as youth minister of St. Joseph Parish in Mendham since 2012, the classes do not meet on any specific day.
The Salesian Sisters of St. Joseph Province were all smiles as Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney dedicated its new $13 million St. Joseph Chapel in North Haledon on Aug. 19 while presiding over the first Mass in the beautiful house of worship. The new 10,793-square-foot chapel has replaced the former St. Joseph Chapel, lovingly called “the heart” of the province, and of Mary Help of Christians Academy (MHCA), which was destroyed in 2018 by a four-alarm fire. The tragedy shocked and saddened the local Salesian community.
Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney and the Diocese of Paterson invite local clergy, religious, and laity to the Church of Paterson’s first-ever Eucharistic Congress in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson, from Friday, Sept. 23 to Sunday, Sept. 25. This bilingual event will feature keynote speaker Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect for the Section of New Evangelization of the Dicastery for Evangelization in Rome, who seeks to inspire participants with several talks on its theme: “The Eucharist, the Source and Summit of the New Evangelization.”
It’s that time of year when the Major League baseball divisional races are winding to a conclusion that leads to the World Series and when the high school, college, and National Football League seasons begin. For most sports fans, there is no better time of the year.
Abortion is big business to N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy (D). He is not content with our home state already being the largest provider of abortions in America. He wants even more of them performed here because he sees abortion as providing an economic boon to the state. Being the No. 1 salesman for the culture of death in New Jersey, Murphy used his zealous pro-abortion message as a reason why businesses should relocate to New Jersey.
On Saturday, Aug. 13, Bishop Kevin Sweeney made a pastoral visit to Our Lady of Fatima Parish in the Highland Lakes section of Vernon where he celebrated Mass to mark the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. The parish’s Rosary Society coordinated the event. Father Julio Barrios, pastor, concelebrated the Mass and Deacons Jerzy Chciuk and Bill Aquino assisted at the Mass.
Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney celebrated a Mass for the Feast of the Assumption on Aug. 13, two days early, in St. Michael Church in Netcong. At the end of Mass the Bishop blessed a statue of Our Lady of the Assumption which led a procession through the streets of Netcong — part of St. Michael’s celebration of Feast of the Assumption, which is observed on Aug. 15.
The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of North Haledon, also known at the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco, received the perpetual vows of three religious sisters, during a Mass on Aug. 5 at St. Anthony Church in Hawthorne, presided at by Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney. The Salesian Sisters are: Sister April Cabaccang, Sister Katie Flanagan, and Sister April Hoffman.
A helmet and vest can save a life, and Father Oleksii Holchuk is grateful for his community’s ongoing support that makes saving Ukrainian lives possible. Father Holchuk emigrated from his home country to the United States six years ago. Once he arrived, he began to serve at Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Ascension Cathedral here. The parish, he said, has collected donations to send overseas for years, but not in as significant a way as they do today.
Pat Convey of Our Lady of the Lake (OLL) Parish in Sparta puts the finishing touches on cooking one of her signature dishes, shrimp scampi, for her and her husband. This particular evening, she makes and packages up two extra helpings for dinner later — not for members of her large family but for the two priests, who serve the Sussex County parish.
The words from the 12th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, which we heard at Mass on this past Sunday, lead me to reflect again on the gift of the “communion of the saints.” That beautiful phrase and image, “… Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses …” invites us to recall that from the very beginning of the church there has been an awareness that Christians are assisted in their earthly pilgrimage by those who have “gone before us in faith”. Christians have always believed that the saints are with us, to encourage and inspire us as we “run the race.”
