By Jessica Easthope

Jennifer Benitez didn’t know Christmas 2022 would be her last in Bogota, Colombia.

But all it took was a split second for her to realize, it had to be. 

“I try not to speak about it,” Benitez said. “It’s very difficult for me.”

That moment was when the acid started to burn the skin off her left leg. Gang members attacked Benitez with it as retaliation for her and her husband Bryan Jate telling them to stop smoking marijuana outside their home, to protect their young son Julian. 

“I was walking to the grocery store and they came up on a motorcycle. I blocked my face and fell to the ground,” Beitez said. “And the man on the motorcycle said, ‘next time it’s going to be your son.’”

“It was in that moment that we made the decision to leave,” Jate said. “She spent two months in the hospital. It was very difficult for me as a husband and father.”

Now they sit in the basement of St. Matthew’s Church in Crown Heights a world away from the worries they felt at home. Here they’ve found a community and a new family.

“We feel enormous love here,” Jate said. “Everything we have is because of the church.”

The church provides food, clothing and necessities to migrants from across the city. Pastor Father Frank Black says he can’t help but find similarities between these migrants’ stories and Jesus’ story.

“Jesus’ whole story was a story of having to move from one place to the other, face the attacks of politics, live with people who were not accepting of him and his family,” Father Black said. “The lord understands, and he’s with us, and he’s blessing us too.”

Benitez and Jate said in Colombia, Christmas is colorful. There’s a lot of music and dancing, what they see around them is different. But this Christmas has already been made because no one can hurt them.

The couple does volunteer work at St. Matthew’s. 

Their family and dozens of other migrants will be sharing a Christmas meal at Our Lady of Charity in Crown Heights on Christmas. 

The sign outside St. Joseph Church in Astoria says “all are welcome in this place.”

Inside, churchgoers are greeted by a huge painting of Christ, above the altar.

“It is really the Christ in judgment,” said Father Vincent Chirichella, pastor of St. Joseph Church. “But also the Christ of mercy because he has a book in his hand and on the book is written come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened.”

Father Chirichella tells Currents News it was laborers who built the original church’s wood-frame structure in 1876, many of them German immigrants.

“The name of the church, St. Joseph, was given by the bishop because of the men that worked in the Steinway music factory, and a lot of them were carpenters and laborers,” Father Chirichella said. “They worked on this church so he came up with Joseph the carpenter.”

Parishioners are still working on the church. the current one, built in 1906.

The Germans moved on. Now Hispanics, some Italians, and others fill the pews.

“The people that worship here make it special, very loving, very caring, very giving,” Father Chirichella said.

People like Marlene Kaselis, the resident wreath-maker.

Kaselis makes every wreath by hand to decorate the church for Christmas.

She says she’s not an artist, she gets her creativity from God. “I’ve had some interesting things happen in my life and some of them have been difficult and I truly believe that if it was not for my faith, I would have gone off the deep end,” Kaselis said.

This is her way of saying thank you.

And when Christmas is over, her work, and that of her volunteers, isn’t.

“All of a sudden it was like well now it’s Easter,” Kaselis said. “We have to do something for Easter. Then you take down Easter, well now it’s summertime, now it’s autumn you have to make decorations, it just happened!”

Whatever the season, Father Chirichella said Kaselis is ready to be put to work.

“She’s always there, always there to lend a helping hand,” Father Chirichella said.

And Kaselis said she wouldn’t change a thing.

“It’s nice, you know it’s nice that the Church looks pretty,” Kaselis said.

Decorating the church isn’t the only thing Kaselis does for St Joseph Parish.

The former lector and religious ed teacher also runs the food pantry.

Now you know Marlene Kaselis from St. Joseph and how she makes up the Pulse of the Parish.

When you sing, you pray twice.

Michael Zabrocki knows there’s more to it.

“I arranged everything, used samples of strings, violin, flutes wind,” Zabrocki said. “I had to lay down all of the vocals; some tracks have 36 background vocals.”

He recently released his 7th album titled “Consecration: Hymns And Prayers To The Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“Jesus was a human being,” Zabrocki said. “He walked as a man, he can relate to us so he loved. That’s the important part about the message of the Sacred Heart that we’re supposed to see Christ in each other.”

When Zabrocki’s not at the switchboard in his home recording studio, he’s the music director at Holy Trinity Church in Whitestone.

When churches closed during the pandemic the Brooklyn Visitation Sisters had no way to let the public pray along with their annual 9 day novena to the sacred heart.

Zabrocki and former pastor Father Joseph Gibino stepped in and prerecorded the masses for them.

“It became an all encompassing thing for me,” Zabrocki said. “I learned how to sleep faster to get through those days. The sisters were wonderful about it.”

“Knowing Mike, knowing the sisters and knowing the experience that brought us together was very meaningful for me.”

A new devotion to the Sacred Heart quickly became Zabrocki’s creative muse, and he got to work on consecration.

when the superior of the Visitation Sisters Mother Susan Marie Kaspersyk heard the very first track she was in awe.

“That’s a special prayer to us and to have heard it in music written especially for that consecration prayer,” Mother Marie said. “I said ‘you could sing the consecration now.’”

Timing issues brought on by the loss of Zabrocki’s twin brother and music partner ron delayed the release of the album, but it was no coincidence that it would be heard by the world at the start of the 350th Jubilee of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary.

“It just happened that he has finally completed the album and those kind of things show me its divine providence,” Mother Marie said.

“Divine Providence is what it is a lot of things,” “There was a timing issue with everything with this album and it really became obvious as the product continued.”

The goal of the album is to usher in a new era of devotion to the Sacred Heart, one Father Gibino says is desperately needed.

“In a time of war and civil unrest, the unity of the heart of Jesus is so important,” Father Gibino said. “So right now we need more than ever. We need a sign of hope and healing, and better than the heart of Jesus.”

An Zabrocki wants to set the record straight.

“They’re not hearing Mike Zabrocki,” he said. “It’s not about bringing the attention to you, you have to be John the Baptist and point to Christ.”

he’s not in it for the praise of himself but the worship of him.

You have a chance to see Zabrocki perform songs from his album live.

He will be singing at a prayer service for the start of the Sacred Heart Jubilee celebration on December 27th at 7 p.m. at the Visitation Monastery, located at 89-02 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

You can also buy it on his website MICHAELZABROCKI.COM.

For another year, Pope Francis celebrated his birthday with children from the Casa Santa Marta dispensary — the Vatican center that offers pediatric services to families in need. It currently treats about 450 children.

The pope was welcomed with great enthusiasm and he dedicated these words to everyone present.

“Good morning to all of you and thank you very much, to see all of you, so many little girls and boys all here,” Pope Francis said. “Thank you so much and we have to get ready for a big party, which will be next week: Christmas. Now, each of you think: What am I going to ask Jesus? In silence. Close your eyes and think.”

The celebration proved to be festive with clowns and acrobats. But the main event was the cake.

As he does almost every year, Pope Francis encouraged the children to taste the cake.

The 87-year-old pope appeared lively with the children, who left the Vatican with smiles from ear to ear.