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Fallen Firefighter Saves Lives After His Death With Organ Donation

In her Long Island home, Kristina Moon fondly remembers her fallen husband, Billy.

“l would say he’s a big personality, you know he was 6’4 so you couldn’t miss him when you walked into a room to begin with. just he was, loved laughing, loved having a good time,” said Moon.

The New York City firefighter died tragically during a training exercise at his Brooklyn firehouse in December.

Moon said, “you know it’s a phone call you hope you never have to get.”

Billy was committed to saving lives even choosing to do so after his death.

He was a proud organ donor and he often encouraged others to do the same.

“He came up to me and said are you an organ donor? and i looked at him and I go, i dont think it’s on my license but I would. and he was very passionate about well why not. it just seems like in his words a no brainer,” said his wife.

His heart, lungs, kidneys and liver were all donated to 5 people on waiting lists. One of them was Terrence Jordan.

Less than a year ago, the former FDNY lieutenant could barely leave his couch without getting winded. Terrence had been a 9/11 first responder, the toxic dust of that day eventually leading to him needing a double lung transplant.

“The pulmonologist told me,” Jordan said, “don’t get your hopes up.”

And just as Terrence had started to lose hope, he got help from a guardian angel.

“One guy did a very unselfish act, and he happens to be a brother firefighter, saved my life,” said Jordan.

Former FDNY captain Patrick Reynolds is also grateful for Billy’s sacrifice.

“I was the recipient of billy moon’s liver,” said Reynolds.

Patrick had a genetic ailment that caused cirrhosis. His entire family wasn’t a match, but Billy was.

“Every day you wake up is because somebody made an extreme sacrifice,” said Reynolds.

Now Kristina is carrying on her husband’s message about the benefits of organ donation. She’s created the Billy Moon foundation and encourages others to share that life-saving gift once they’re gone.

“I feel like when tragedy strikes you kind of redefine your purpose a little bit, and really sharing his story is important,” said Moon.

Because while Billy’s life may have ended too soon, Kristina knows he’s smiling down from heaven after having helped others for one final time.

“It really makes you think that miracles happen and everything happens for a reason and I know how much pride it’s probably bringing him even now,” said Moon.

Catholic News Headlines for Friday 07/21/2023

 

New York City Firefighter Billy Moon died during a training exercise at his Brooklyn firehouse in December.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is planning to distribute flyers at the southern border to discourage newcomers from heading to the Big Apple.

Bishops in Texas are outraged over reports that troopers at the U.S.-Mexico border were told to push migrants back into the Rio Grande, and deny them drinking water.

Young people in Italy are preparing to travel to Portugal for World Youth Day but they just need the money to get there.

Visiting Priests: Father Martin Asiedu-Peprah Spends 9th Summer in the Diocese of Brooklyn

By Jessica Easthope

Father Martin Asiedu-Peprah, Father Tom Leach and Dolores Fleck laugh and joke like old friends, because at this point they are.

Father Martin is one of about 70 visiting priests serving in the Diocese of Brooklyn this summer, but to the parishioners at Mary Queen of Heaven Church in Flatlands, he’s more like a local than a visitor.

“You feel that you are needed and you can get something from them but also that you have something to offer so every year it’s a different experience,” said Father. Martin.

This is Father Martin’s ninth summer in Brooklyn. On the drive to the airport after his first, Pastor Father Tom Leach asked if he would come back, the answer was yes and now that question has become tradition.

“I feel so relieved when he says yes! He brings to the parish his own pastoral experience, that depth of understanding of the scriptures that comes out in all of his homilies,” said Father Tom.

Father Martin is a pastor himself, at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in rural Ghana, a world away from the city streets of Brooklyn, where he’s learned to pack a lot of preaching into a New York minute.

“People are more time conscious here, we do things within a time limit, we do things within the time allotted for it,” he said.

At home he’s a seminary professor, Father Tom, who just celebrated 50 years as a priest said he learns something new from Father Martin every summer.

“It’s things that I’ve picked up in his preaching, insights into the scripture that I haven’t heard before even though we’re how many thousands of miles distance most of the year we come together and immediately there’s an understanding,” he said.

Dolores Fleck has been a parishioner at Mary Queen of Heaven for 88 years, she’s seen pastors and visiting priests come and go – and she’s a tough critic. But she counts down the days to Father Martin’s visit every year, he’s opened her heart and mind.

“Each time he gives a homily something else seems to open up in the scriptures that becomes part of my faith life and you can’t put a name to that it just stays with you,” she said.

And Father Martin brings back to Ghana Dolores’ sense of community and the volunteerism that’s second nature to parishioners here.

“I really go back every year determined to teach my people that the church belongs to all of us and that everybody should play their role,” he said.

At the end of the summer Father Martin is hoping Father Tom will ask him to come back for yet another year – and his answer will be the same as always.

Catholic News Headlines for Thursday 07/20/2023

 

The next time you go to Mass you may notice a new priest celebrating it.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams says eviction notices will start going out to some of the 54,000 migrants in the big apple’s shelters.

Pope Francis’ peace envoy hand delivered a letter from the Holy Father to President Joe Biden.

The Pope’s representative to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre was in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Archbishop Pierre Tells The Tablet of His Passion: Desire to Evangelize

Pope Francis will soon have close to two dozen new men he can rely on to carry on his work.

They will be formally installed on September 30th.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, will be one of the cardinals installed.

The national correspondent for The Tablet and Crux, John Lavenburg, got an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with him.

He joins Currents News to talk a bit more about it.

See the July 22 edition of The Tablet for the complete interview.

Shinnecock Kelp Farmers and Sisters of St. Joseph Collaborate to Cleanup Local Bay

For thousands of years, these waters have been viewed as a sacred space by the Shinnecock Indian Nation.

Rebecca Genia, a Shinnecock kelp farmer, said, “we are attached to seaweed, we were born into it, our culture is from seaweed, surrounded by water you know that’s our culture is in the water.”

But thanks to some heavy development in the Hamptons community, the clear waters of Shinnecock Bay have turned murky.

“You have a place that’s one of the wealthiest places in the entire world that has no sewer infrastructure. It’s really actually a disgusting and filthy situation. the water’s not safe,” said Tela Troge, a Shinnecock kelp farmer.

It didn’t take a science degree for locals like Rebecca Genia to realize that trouble has been brewing in these waters.Genia said, “We have seen it going downhill and what my grandchildren, what my great grandchildren see when they’re out in the bay is way different than when we were kids.”

So a group of Shinnecock women decided to team up, creating a kelp farming collective in 2019. They hope to tackle the rising nitrogen levels in the water.

They enlisted the Sisters of St. Joseph who live right across the bay, and established a winter hatchery on the nuns’ seven acre property.

The sea plant pulls nitrogen out of the water, while also creating a thriving habitat for shellfish. The sisters say it is all part of their mission.

“We are one with the earth and we give to the earth and knowing that we never want to take anything more than what we need,” said Sister Kerry Handal of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

The work has only been going on for a few years, but they have seen the impact.

“The fish and the plant life, you can see an increase, they’re drawn to right here which before they weren’t,” said Handal.

The farmers and the sisters say they are determined to help, because they know the consequences of just standing by.
“It affects us all. You, me, us, every single person, every single living creature on this earth,” said Genia.

Catholic News Headlines for Wednesday 07/19/2023

 

The sisters of St. Joseph are teaming up with the Shinnecock Indian nation to combat pollution.

A Brooklyn street has been named for a fallen NYPD detective.

Pope Francis has a new personal secretary.

Pope Francis met with the children attending the Vatican’s summer camp.

World Youth Day 2023 Event Is Helping To Revitalize A Rundown Area of Lisbon

World Youth Day is just two weeks away, and aside from evangelizing young Catholics, it’s also revitalizing a community in its host city.

However, the stage that the Lisbon City Council has prepared for World Youth Day has attracted the attention of the international community for one detail: its construction will cost almost $5.5 million.

The executive director of World Youth Day Madrid in 2011, Yago de la Cierva, spoke about these expenses with the mayor of Lisbon, who will receive Pope Francis during the pilgrimage.

“I think the controversy regarding the stage is one that has no real basis and perhaps the confusion comes from a problem of miscommunication, that it has not been well explained,” de la Cierva said. “What the mayor explained to me is that an area of the city that was neglected and in poor condition has been improved. It has been left fully prepared for many events in the future.”

De la Cierva further contends that although the purpose of World Youth Day “is not to bring money to the host country. If the organization is efficient, an event of this magnitude can be very beneficial.”

Pope Francis Tells Summer Camp Children: “Grandparents Are My Superheroes”

Despite not having any public meetings scheduled during the month of July, Pope Francis met with children from the summer camp, “Estate ragazzi in Vaticano.” 

The children greeted him with songs and some of them presented him with gifts including bracelets, a necklace and a poster. 

During the meeting, Pope Francis responded to the different questions the children asked him, including who his superheroes are. 

“I don’t know if you all will share the idea that I will have,” Pope Francis said. “Do you know who my superheroes are? Grandparents. Because they built a family and then they grew older. But grandparents are wise. And that is why it is important that you all talk with your grandparents. Do you speak with your grandparents or not? I don’t understand.”

This message comes just five days before World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, which the Pope started in 2021.

He also encouraged the campers to express their gratitude to their parents and to have a healthy relationship with the digital world.