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As heavy rains pelted Rockaway and the rest of northern New Jersey last weekend, the love and mercy of God came pouring down on faithful in St. Cecilia Church, Rockaway, who had taken the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the message of and the devotion to Divine Mercy, during a “Mercy and Mary Retreat” here from Friday, Aug. 10 to Saturday, Aug. 11. The 380 Catholics from St. Cecilia’s and beyond gave a celebrity welcome to the leader of the retreat, Marian Father of the Immaculate Conception Michael E. Gaitley, a noted author, who encouraged them to spread the Divine Mercy message far and wide to a world filled with suffering and sin.

Bishop Serratelli has issued a decree that brings together and strengthens two distinct and dynamic parishes in Dover by canonically merging Sacred Heart Parish, an Anglo population, and Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, a Spanish-speaking faith community, into one parish, which took effect yesterday, Aug. 15, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The new unified parish is now called “Sacred Heart and Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church,” although each individual church building will retain its original respective name.

Teens from across the United States who were taking part in a Catholic Heart Workcamp (CHWC) and were housed at Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon, immersed themselves in working at various agencies of Catholic Charities in the Diocese during their stay during the last week of July.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Mary Parish in Dover Aug. 5, where he served as main celebrant and homilist at the 11:30 a.m. Mass for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Concelebrating the liturgy were SOLT Father Derek Anderson, St. Mary’s pastor, and SOLT Father Patrick Prajzner, St. Mary’s parochial vicar.

Parenthood can be a noisy business, and for a group of Catholic dads in Morris County the pre-dawn hours offer the quiet needed for restoration and reflection on their vocation as fathers. The N.J. chapter of the Fathers of St. Joseph meets for silent prayer and discussion every other Saturday morning in the parish office at St. Cecelia’s Parish in Rockaway.

Delegates of diocesan Hispanic Ministry will carry their five pastoral priorities for serving the needs of the ever-growing Hispanic and Latino populations as previously proposed to the national gathering of V Encuentro from Thursday, Sept. 20 to Sunday, Sept. 23 in Grapevine, Texas.

The faith community of St. Mary Help of Christians Parish in Paterson welcomed Bishop Serratelli on July 22. The Bishop served as main celebrant and homilist of the 10:30 a.m. Mass for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

ishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit on July 29 to Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Dover where he served as main celebrant and homilist of the 10:30 a.m. Mass in Spanish for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit on July 28 to Our Lady of Victories (OLV) Parish and the Shrine of St. Jude in Paterson where he served as main celebrant and homilist for the 5 p.m. vigil Mass for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. During his visit, the Bishop blessed a new and as-yet-unnamed chapel in the church.

The Catholic community of St. Brendan and St. George happily reports a marriage made in heaven as it celebrates this year the 5th anniversary of the merger that brought together the parishioners of St. Brendan, Clifton, with the parishioners of St. George, Paterson. Since the merger, a multicultural faith community has been established that has cast a wider net by welcoming other ethnic populations, including members of the Portuguese and Filipino communities.

The generosity of the faithful of the Paterson Diocese made the 2017 Bishop’s Annual Appeal (BAA) a record-breaker with $4.688 million in pledges — the largest amount raised in Appeal history and an increase of $266,000 more than 2016, which also had broken previous records. The largest area of growth for the 2017 Appeal was online, which experienced a 50-percent increase in the number of donors and a 100 percent increase in the amount contributed using that method to make a pledge.

Diocesan Catholic Campus Ministry in Madison presented its annual Man of the Year and Woman of the Year awards to Joe Caceres, a leader in CCM at FDU, and Taylor Gudenkauf, president of CCM at FDU, during a Mass recently at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard, also in Madison. The liturgy marked the end of the 2017-18 academic year.

The Sisters of Christian Charity of the Eastern Province received an official “welcome home” to their new three-story Mallinckrodt Convent in Mendham July 19 during a ceremony which included a ribbon-cutting and a blessing and dedication by Bishop Serratelli, who also celebrated Mass in the building’s spacious chapel.

The clock read 7:05 a.m. Undaunted by the early hour, Father Philip-Michael Tangorra, a priest of the Diocese of Paterson, was fully alert to tackle a deeply spiritual question by the co-host of a Catholic radio show in Ohio: “How are we called to sanctify all aspects of our lives through the Crucifixion?”

The warm and generous multicultural faith community of St. Bonaventure Parish in Paterson celebrated 140 years of welcoming in the strangers among us from the surrounding neighborhoods and beyond and also reaching out to help the poor of Paterson.

Christopher Brancato has been appointed as the develop­ment director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Paterson. The appointment, which was effective July 1, was announced jointly by Scott Milliken, Catholic Chari­ties Chief Executive Officer, and Msgr. Herbert Tillyer, president of the Board of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Paterson.

For the 32nd consecutive year, teens from the youth ministry program at St. Patrick Parish in Chatham are traveling to Rowlesburg, W.V. to repair homes for families in need. This summer time mission began in 1986 following a flood that devastated Appalachia. The mission trip to help those who live in extreme poverty there was started by three teenage parishioners of St. Patrick’s and has continued since as a highlight of the youth ministry experience. That initial trip, now named Appalachia Help Week, annually connects Chatham to West Virginia.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Bernard Parish in Mount Hope on July 1, where he served as main celebrant and homilist of the 10:30 a.m. Mass for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

At various times in his life, Father Peter Clarke, president of Morris Catholic High School in Denville, has walked with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, patron of Catholic schools and the first U.S.-born saint, in his faith, vocation and pursuit of higher education. Before becoming a priest, Father Clarke attended St. Peter Parish in Manhattan, where Mother Seton converted to Catholicism in 1805. Years later, as a priest in Catholic schools in the Diocese, he was inspired to pursue a doctorate in educational leadership at the College of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, named in the saint’s honor and operated by the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth.

About 150 members of the St. Lucy Province of the Religious Teachers Filippini gathered at their Motherhouse, Villa Walsh, for a convocation from June 28 to July 3, where they were privileged to receive fresh perspectives on their charism, mission and history, which started with their founder, St. Lucy Filippini. Guided by the theme, “A Summons for the Time that Is Ours,” the convocation also included liturgies and spirit-filled presentations that gave the Filippini sisters a renewed sense of hope in moving forward.