Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Francis DeSales Parish in the McAfee section of Vernon April 6 where he celebrated the vigil Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. During the Mass, the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to young people of the parish. The Bishop also named Father Christopher Barkhausen as pastor of St. Francis. He was serving the parish as its administrator.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Mary Church in Denville April 7 where he celebrated Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. During the Mass, he also administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to young people of the parish.

Does your prayer life leave you frustrated — feeling like you should be getting more out of the holy experience of communicating with God, like you should be devoting more time to it or like you are going about it wrong? If so, then let Michael St. Pierre, executive director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association, become your “prayer coach” and put his years of expertise in workplace and personal time management, productivity and performance to work in your spiritual life.

The faithful kneel in prayer as they experience Christ’s love and mercy in the Blessed Sacrament in front of them on the altar at the start of a recent holy hour dedicated to Divine Mercy. They also listen to Jesus’ message of love and mercy, as Derek Nelson, leader of the service, softly sings his song “My Mercy” — written as if Christ were sitting in the pews next to them and inviting them to receive his infinite forgiveness.

She was born and raised in New Jersey. She was the youngest of seven children. She came from an immigrant family. She attended a public school. Many teens in the Diocese can claim this background. But it was also the background of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich. On Sunday, May 5, high school teens from around the Diocese are being invited to a youth pilgrimage to Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich’s shrine in Holy Family Chapel, on the campus of the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station.

In the Old City of Jerusalem, tradition holds that the Via Dolorosa (The Way of Sorrows) was the path that Jesus had to follow carrying his cross on his way to his crucifixion on Golgatha. For many years on Good Friday, the tradition for the parishioners of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is to present a live re-enactment of Christ’s sorrowful journey on the Via Dolorosa to Calvary through the Living Stations of the Cross along the streets of the city.

Our religious freedom in this nation is firmly rooted in the First Amendment. Yet, some elected officials continually try to throw dirt on our religious freedom in an attempt to bury it, once and for all, in our increasingly progressive secular society. We witnessed it recently during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s review of Brian Buescher, a Knight of Columbus, for a judgeship on the U.S. District Court as two Democrat Senators Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris, questioned Buescher’s membership in the Knights of Columbus. They accused this fraternal organization of having “taken a number of extreme positions.”

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Christopher Parish in Parsippany where he celebrated Mass March 31 for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, which is also known as Laetare Sunday. On Laetare Sunday, vestments worn by clergy members are rose colored to signify the coming joy of Easter Sunday on April 21. Laetare comes from the Latin, which means “to rejoice.”