News - December 2017 RSS Feed

On the vigil of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dec. 11, hope sprang eternal among the members of St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Parsippany, who showed a display of unity, all directed to the Mother of God. More than 1,000 people filled the church to standing room only for the feast day celebration, which included a multilingual rosary, a procession of couples with candles to symbolize the gift of family and a procession of children as a reminder that Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patron of Life.

Students at Pope John XXIII Middle School in Sparta know the importance of being compassionate to those who are in need. All students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades try to act this way every day while working in the classroom, walking the hallways, playing sports, participating in clubs and volunteering in the community.

Dressed in sport jackets and school uniforms, a small group of students from Delbarton School in Morristown make footprints on a shaded and snow-covered rise in historic Orchard Street cemetery in Dover. One by one they approach a small baby’s casket there and place a daisy or lily on top of it. Along with Benedictine Father Hilary O'Leary, who led a burial rite Dec. 18, the Delbarton students gathered around the coffin to sing “Silent Night” — fitting in marking the Christmas season and in marking the peaceful closure of the short life and tragic death of the baby boy whom they named Anthony Mary.

In the spotlight on a stage at St. Catherine of Bologna Parish in Ringwood, Catholic speaker and author Chris Stefanick got caught up one night two weeks ago between two heart-rending personal love stories: one about God and another close to his former home parish of St. Catherine’s.

Another new year is only a few days away. For most of us these last few days of the year are times when we reflect on what we accomplished (or didn’t) in 2017 and what positive changes we would like to make in our lives to make 2018 a better year for us. We look at Jan. 1, 2018 as a new beginning and a time for a fresh start. But often, when we look back on 2017, we find that the same problems we vowed to fix at the start of the year still remain with us.

Bishop Serratelli formally installed Father David Monteleone as the pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in Pequannock Dec. 17 at a Mass for the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday, Latin for “rejoice.” Relatives of Father Monteleone witnessed the installation along with parishioners of Holy Spirit.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in the Hewitt section of West Milford Township Dec. 17 and blessed and consecrated the new altar. The celebration took place during the Third Sunday of Advent also known as Gaudete Sunday.

On Feb. 1, the diocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection plans to launch a new and improved website through Virtus Online and Fastrax Select — a service of Selection.com — which will simplify the registration and verification process of criminal background checks for the more than 20,000 clergy, employees and volunteers, who minister, work or serve in parishes, schools and agencies of the Church of Paterson.

St. Patrick Parish in Chatham recently completed its 31st year of Christmas-in-a-Box. The outreach program, that includes participation by more than 295 parishioner families, is one of the largest annual initiatives undertaken by the parish.

The waiting is almost over. Christmas Day, the birth of our Savior, is four days away. Yet, as this day of glorious good news approaches with its message of “peace on earth, good will to men,” much of the news we have heard and read this year is doom and gloom.

The newly-formed Board of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Paterson has announced that it has undertaken a nationwide search for a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of diocesan Catholic Charities. This move follows the announcement in November that a new corporation had been formed for Catholic Charities with a new, single board of directors.

Paulist Father James DiLuzio stood in front of a group of Advent retreat-goers on a recent Wednesday evening at St. Joseph Parish in West Milford, helping prepare them for Christmas — the beginning of Christ’s saving work on earth — by singing in a deep, melodious voice an appropriate hymn, “This is a Day of New Beginnings.”

With the start of winter so near, there’s a ministry that has surely warmed the hearts of many through the talents of its members in knitting and crocheting. Throughout the Diocese, there are several parishes that host this unique ministry known as the Prayer Shawl Ministry.

For more than a decade, hundreds of teens from around the country would come to the Paterson Diocese volunteering for a week during the summer at its Catholic Charities agencies through Catholic Heart Workcamp (CHWC). Bringing their joy and eagerness to serve and living as followers of Jesus would, these teens were needed to help diocesan agencies, which already run on limited resources.

Donald Wehr didn’t notice much different about Plano, Texas, than his native New Jersey, when he arrived there in September to start ministering at St. Mark the Evangelist Parish — except for those recognizable Lone Star State expressions, such as “Y’all,” and footwear, like “wearing lots of cowboy boots.” This 19-year-old has joined a team of young adults who are fired up to undertake a specific mission in evangelizing through the Gospel.

bout three years ago, St. Joseph Parish in Mendham started its own socially minded tradition: “Good Deed Friday” — posting on Facebook blurbs that thank some of the kind, thoughtful and compassionate deeds that parishioners have performed for other people.

The newest chapter in the history of the Diocese of Paterson began to be written Dec. 9 when faithful from across the Diocese’s three counties of Passaic, Morris and Sussex gathered together in the newly-renovated Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson for a Mass of Thanksgiving to mark the exact date 80 years ago that the Diocese of Paterson was established in 1937.

In his prayer video for the month of December, Pope Francis prays for grandparents and the elderly, urging people to respect and support them, that their wisdom may continue to be passed down to new generations.

Liturgical music serves as a powerful — and much-loved — form of evangelization that “equips parishioners, priests and ministers, including the choir, with the tools to become drawn to the faith during the Mass and then drawn to the faith again all week,” Preston Dibble, diocesan director of music, observed at a recent convocation for local parish music ministers, pastoral musicians and music lovers.

Students at Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon packed “Boxes of Joy” in honor of friend and benefactor of the Sisters Rodger Rohde. Every November the academy hosts a service day in his honor and this year found them preparing shoe-box-sized containers of Christmas gifts for children in need.