News - January 2024 RSS Feed

It never seems like I am ready to say goodbye to the Christmas season. The joyful days of Christmas always pass by so quickly. Our churches look so beautiful during Christmas with the Nativity scenes, the trees and poinsettias but it is only a couple of weeks long.

“As in the Mass it is [the Holy Spirit] who works the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, so in the Sacrament of Orders it is [the Holy Spirit] who works the consecration of bishop or priest” (John Paul II, Gift and Mystery, p. 53).

The Eucharistic Revival Team in St. Jude Parish, Blairstown, recently arranged for the traveling Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit, created by the Diocese of Trenton, to be hosted in the parish hall for two weeks. The exhibit is based on the website created by Blessed Carlo Acutis, who attempted to catalogue all the Eucharistic miracles that have taken place worldwide.

Cathedral Concerts at Saint Francis is pleased to present its next concert of the season, featuring Christopher M. C. Deibert, on Saturday, February 17, 2024 @ 7:00 PM

By the thousands they descended upon several parishes in the Diocese, devoted faithful who gathered to venerate the first-class relic (part of a saint’s body) of St. Jude Thaddeus, known as the Apostle of the Impossible. St. Jude was one of the twelve Apostles who accompanied Jesus during his ministry, eventually martyred in what is today Beirut, Lebanon.

In 2022, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a three-year Eucharistic Revival initiative to renew the American Church “by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.” The first year was focused at the diocesan level.

I recall reading several years ago the account of a pilot who became disoriented in the fog near Fairbanks, Alaska in 1949. Coupled with this, his radio went dead, and his fuel began running low. Through his headphones, the pilot could hear a voice speaking: “Keep talking, Captain; say anything that comes to mind…Just keep talking.” It was the ground operator at a nearby airport who came up with a plan.

In adherence to a centuries old tradition of devotion and celebration, Bishop James F. Checchio joined with the Filipino Community Dec. 15 as principal celebrant and homilist for the opening Mass of Simbang Gabi, a devotional nine-day series of Masses honoring the Blessed Mother Mary in preparation for the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In early November, the whole house received an email from Benedictine Father Kurt Belsol who is the coordinator of liturgy at the North American College.  He informed us that the officials at St. Peter’s Basilica had requested 16 servers for the Christmas Mass During the Night with the Holy Father.  A sign-up sheet was posted on the main bulletin board, and when passing by it one day, I decided to jot down my name in one of the empty slots. Just like that, I was on my way to an unforgettable experience.

The Dec. 21 annual Seminarian Christmas gathering with Bishop James F. Checchio, held in the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway, was a time of prayer and fellowship for all in attendance, and included Midday Prayer, lunch and Christmas gifts from the Bishop to the seminarians.

The diocesan Virtual Women’s Group has broadened their horizons and expanded their knowledge of the Church and its teachings without ever leaving home.  Through listening to the podcast “Catechism in a Year” by evangelizer Father Mike Schmitz, individual study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and weekly Sunday Zoom meetings, the group completed the program Jan. 1 of this year.

(OSV News) – Armed with art supplies, Sister Alicia Torres recently invited young adults attending a Catholic conference near Milwaukee to create a self-portrait on paper, drawn inside a circle. The circle, she explained, represented the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist, each person better understands himself or herself as made in the image and likeness of God, she told them.

Just seconds after midnight, the first baby of 2024 in New Jersey was born at 12:01 a.m. in Saint Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick to Jessica Johanna Cardona-Giraldo and Esteban Josue Aguirre Monterrosa from Dunellen. The 5 lbs. 11 oz. baby girl was named Belen Aguirre Cardona, and is the couple’s first child.

“Are we really thinking of what the Eucharist is when we receive it?” The question was posed Jan. 4 by Father Glenn Comandini, diocesan coordinator of Ongoing Faith Formation, during the first of his twelve sessions on “The Theology of the Eucharist,” the foundation of Roman Catholic faith.

Making New Year’s resolutions seems to have become as much a part of the Christmas Season as candy canes and eggnog. I must confess, I don’t do New Year resolutions. A firm resolution of amendment in confession, yes, but not New Year’s resolutions. That’s asking too much.

When I was a seminarian, one of my summer assignments was St. Paul Parish in Highland Park. This hamlet adjacent to New Brunswick, Piscataway and Edison is predominantly Jewish. There were four synagogues in town, Reformed, Conservative, Orthodox and Hassidic. All the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were represented – from Ashkenazi Jews, whose roots lay in Eastern Europe to Sephardic Jews whose olive skin speaks of their origins in the lands of the Mediterranean.

At different times throughout the year, I receive invitations to speak on vocations to consecrated life to students in elementary schools, high schools, or in parish catechetical programs within the Diocese of Metuchen. Early in my experience of doing vocation talks, I would put together a PowerPoint presentation to include the latest researched data, photos of religious, some shots of sisters from the congregation of the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, the community to which I belong.

The New Year of 2024 finds the Sisters of Christian Charity have been celebrating not one but two milestones: 175 years as a congregation and 150 years in the United States.

To help offset financial hardship experienced by many low-income families, the New Jersey Catholic Conference wrote to Gov. Phil Murphy Jan. 11 to request his support on the “Working Class Families Anti-Hunger Act” – a bill that would expand eligibility for free school meals to include nonpublic schools.