SUSSEX Bishop Serratelli served as main celebrant and homilist of the 11:45 a.m. Mass on May 13 at St. Monica Parish in Sussex for the Seventh Sunday of Easter. During the liturgy, the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to five young people.
Those newly confirmed by the Bishop were: Elizabeth Crissey, Julie Prokop, Matthew Vera, Cameron Minteer and Luke Minong. Concelebrating the liturgy were Father Jan Wodziak, St. Monica’s pastor, and Father Kevin Corcoran, diocesan vice chancellor and the Bishop’s priest-secretary.
St. Monica’s history started in 1880, when Father Samuel Corrigan, pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Newton, endeavoring to provide for the spiritual needs of the Catholics scattered in the eastern section of Sussex County, decided to build a church in Deckertown. In the late summer of 1881, the first Mass was celebrated in the original church, which was destroyed by a windstorm in 1888 but was quickly rebuilt and enlarged in 1925. In 1942, St. Monica was made an independent parish. On April 21, 1952, ground was broken for a new church.