At outdoor Youth Mass celebrated by Bishop, teens give witness talks about the Eucharist

MADISON  Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney made a pastoral visit to St. Vincent Martyr Parish here on Sunday, May 1, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, where he celebrated an outdoor closing Mass for the parish youth ministry at 5 p.m.

Concelebrating the Mass with the Bishop were Msgr. George Hundt, St. Vincent’s pastor; Father Krzysztof Liwarski, parochial vicar; and Father Yojaneider Garcia, parochial vicar, minister to the Spanish-speaking community, and director of the diocesan Office of Catechesis and Faith Formation. The congregation of 400 faithful that day included 175 students of the parish’s Confirmation program and retreat team members, who gave witness talks on the Eucharist.

St. Vincent Parish, the mother church of most of northwestern New Jersey, has a long history. Mass was offered for Catholics of Bottle Hill (Madison) by priests from New York City as early as 1805, and the parish was founded that year. A church was built on Ridgedale Avenue in 1825 and a new church was built in 1839. From Madison, missionary pastors ranged across northern New Jersey to dozens of communities which today are parishes in their own right. The parishes in Dover, Morristown, Boon­ton, Mendham, Whippany, Chatham and Florham Park are direct offshoots from St. Vincent’s. The current church was built on Green Village Road in 1905. The parish school was opened in 1848.