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Students at Saint Adalbert Catholic Academy are celebrating the Lenten season by recreating Christ’s road to Calvary.
Fourth-grade students at the Elmhurst, Queens school made their own Stations of the Cross using different mediums to give their own take on the 14-step devotion.
This included creating the eighth station out of cut-out art to show when Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, and using “Play-Doh” to tell the story of the tenth station when Jesus is stripped of his clothes.
The Lenten lesson is meant to inspire the students to pray like those on the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Lenten Pilgrimage.
The Big Apple is going green! Starting Tuesday, residents have to start composting – separating food waste from their normal trash or they’ll face a fine. But as Currents News’ Katie Vasquez reports, the new mandate is a piece of cake for one Brooklyn parishioner.
BENSONHURST — Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the three pillars of Lent, but Michele Guerrier has embraced a fourth for herself — the Diocesan Lenten Pilgrimage.
Now in its third year, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Lenten Pilgrimage runs from March 6 to April 15. During that time, the diocese designates a different church each day for the faithful to attend Mass, pray the rosary, and spend time with the Blessed Sacrament.
Guerrier, a retired probation officer from East Flatbush, has participated each year, crisscrossing Brooklyn and Queens to visit the various churches along the pilgrimage route.
When The Tablet caught up with her on the morning of March 28, she had arrived for Mass at St. Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst, the pilgrimage stop for that day. As of that day, Guerrier had made every stop along the route — 21 churches so far — and planned to visit all 37 churches designated for the pilgrimage.
“This pilgrimage has become my fourth pillar for Lent. It’s amazing,” she said.
The visit marked the first time she had ever set foot in St. Athanasius Church. Guerrier said she participates in the pilgrimage because Jesus Christ is the center of everything.
“It is the Eucharist that makes me Catholic,” she explained. “So to be able to go every day somewhere and just spend that quality time with Jesus just reaffirms my resolve. I will always be Catholic because of the Eucharist.”
She also said she relishes the opportunity to visit other churches in the diocese.
“This diocese has the most beautiful churches, and we tend to stay in our parish home and don’t realize what we have out there,” said Guerrier, who is a parishioner of St. Therese of Lisieux Church in East Flatbush.
Upon entering St. Athanasius Church, she pulled out her cell phone and used the Diocesan Lenten Pilgrimage app created by DeSales Media Group — the ministry that produces The Tablet — to check in. The app has become a handy tool for Lenten pilgrims, particularly senior citizens, she said.
“Some people who never knew how to use their phone now have learned by using the app — how to use their phone, upload apps and do wonderful things with pictures,” Guerrier explained.
At each church Guerrier visits, she looks for something that makes that church unique.
“I try to see what draws me the most, what sparks my attention,” she said, “and I take pictures, and usually there’s a word or something that will remain with me.”
Guerrier, who is active in the Haitian Apostolate and the Vicariate Office of Black Catholic Concerns, also said part of the joy of being a pilgrim is getting to meet fellow Catholics of all races and nationalities as she travels throughout the diocese.
“We are the Diocese of Immigrants. We are family in this diocese,” she said.
Even if parishioners are not able to participate in person, they can still join the community online through the app to see all of the pilgrimage stops and even make prayer requests. Participants can get more information by visiting lent.dioceseofbrooklyn.org/.
Hundreds at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Corona, Queens prayed for dozens of soon-to-be parishioners.
The church was full on Sunday March 30 as 60 people took part in their second rite of scrutiny, where the elect and godparents step forward and the parish prays for them.
Bishop Robert Brennan celebrated the ancient rite, which is meant to spiritually prepare the faithful in the weeks leading up to their baptism at the Easter Vigil.
While these men and women are about to finish their faith education journey, more than 300 religious students completed a milestone in theirs.
The children dropped off envelopes at the end of the Mass to mark their hours of church attendance over the last few weeks. It is an important step before they receive the sacrament of Confirmation.
Easter is fast approaching, and Catholics celebrated the fourth Sunday of Lent. On his X account, Bishop Robert Brennan offered a message of encouragement to his flock.
“You know, remember at the beginning of Lent we heard the Temptations? What was the devil trying to do?” The Brooklyn shepherd asks. “Convince Jesus that he wasn’t really the beloved son of God. But Jesus knew who he was, and he reminds us of who we are. Friends, we’re at this midpoint in Lent. In these remaining weeks let’s recall the great love of God and hear the call to conversion not because we’re terrible people who are disappointing God because we are beloved sons and daughters of the father who loves us beyond measure.”
Bishop Brennan posts a Sunday reflection every week. Be sure to follow him online here.
Lent is officially halfway through and the Diocese of Brooklyn is now more than halfway through its Lenten pilgrimage.
Dozens have been visiting different churches in Brooklyn and Queens leading up to the Easter Triduum. Monday’s stop actually had a papal connection.
Bishop Robert Brennan celebrated the Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Long Island City, Queens at the very altar Saint John Paul II used when he celebrated Mass at Aqueduct Racetrack in 1995.
After Mass, parishioners then prayed the Stations of the Cross.
Christopher Pena spends his days picking up passengers across New York City’s five boroughs.
At one point, his life was headed on a one way street too, but that one was to nowhere.
“I was a drug addict, yes,” he tells Currents News. “I used drugs. Cocaine, pills. I meet the wrong people, and that was a bad experience.”
The Bronx resident decided he needed to shift his mindset.
While he got clean two-and-a-half years ago, he still felt like something was missing.
That’s when he let Jesus take the wheel.
“The reason why I came to church, because I want to change my life,” he explains. “I want to find something like identity. I want to connect more with God, spirituality, and physically meet different people.”
He grew up in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York when he was 16, attending both Catholic Masses and evangelical Christian services.
A friend suggested St. Rita Church in East New York, Brooklyn where he felt instantly at peace.
“I like to be here. the people, they treat me good,” says Pena,” who is now a parishioner there and taking the next step in his spiritual journey: he’s about to be baptized into the Catholic faith.
It’s a step he’s taking that he hopes will provide him with a clean slate.
“I want to be more different, be more faithful, do something different for my life, start my life again,” he says.
Pena prays that his experiences can be an example to others: “There’s hope and maybe I can change the mind to come to the church and do the right thing, and start believing more in Jesus.”
And he continues driving forward, knowing that God is right beside him.