Special Wedding Celebrations: Are you celebrating a special wedding anniversary, such as the 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th, etc. St. Helena will recognize all couples celebrating these milestone anniversaries at a special Mass on Sunday, May 27 in English at the 10:30AM Family Mass and in Spansh at the NOON Mass. We will give a special certificate, but we need to know which anniversary you are celebrating, so please call the rectory at 718-892-3233 and give us your name and the date you were married.
April is National Volunteer Month and a great time to take the opportunity to help your neighborhood before, during, and after an emergency. The New York City Community Emergency Response Teams (NYC CERT) are groups of dedicated volunteers who help to prepare their neighbors and communities for different types of disasters, and are looking for new members to join! If you’re interested in becoming part of the NYC CERT program, visit NYC.gov/cert to sign up for training. The next training cycle begins in May. NYC CERT is a public program and training is available to all City residents, as well as those who work in New York City. To become a CERT member, you must: Be 18 years of age or older; live or work in New York City; and pass an NYC Emergency Management background check.
The American Red Cross and the FDNY will present an important 30-min presentation: How to Prepare for an Emergency and What to Do If there Is One. The presentation will take place in the St. Helena Gymnasium on Friday, April 13 from 1-2:30PM and again on Sunday, April 15 at 11:30AM in English and at 1:30PM in Spanish. There will be information tables with a variety of valuable literature as well as members of the FDNY who will give a presentation and will be available to answer any questions.
Free Rain barrel give-a-way on Saturday, May 5 at the Greek American Institute Parking Lot, 3573 Bruckner Blvd from 8AM-Noon, on Saturday, May 12 at Loretto Park, Morris Park Ave, Noon-2PM, or on Saturday June 2 at the Piagentini & Jones Campus, 650 Hollywood Ave, Noon-2PM. For May 5, RSVP to 718-892-2235; for May 12 and June 2, RSVP to 718-931-1721.
Healthy Kids Day on Saturday, April 21 from 10AM-3PM at the Bronx YMCA, 2 Castle Hill Ave. This FREE EVENT features a summer olympics themed day of activities, including getting your feet wet in the pool. For more info, call 212-912-2490.
"Can a modern person still reasonably believe in the divinity of Christ?" Fr. Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation (which organizes the annual Way of the Cross over the Brooklyn Bridge) proposes an anwer. He was an original and innovative thinker and educator, able to propose Christianity in a way that answers the challenges of our time. To make his thought known to a wider public, Crossroads has established the annual "Giussani Series on Faith and Modernity" to present every year a specific aspect of Fr. Giussani’s rich theological and pedagogical understanding. The 2018 Giussani Series will take place on Tuesday, May 1 at 7:00pm at the Sheen Center and will focus specifically on how Giussani's thought addresses modernity. Speakers are philosopher Dr. Michael Hanby and theologian Fr. Paolo Prosperi, both professors at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America. The event is free of charge but reservations are required at sheencenter.org/shows/giussani.
Students across the country have sparked a national movement on the urgent need for commonsense gun safety legislation to keep our communities safe. This is one of the most critical issues facing our nation, and on Saturday, April 7, there will be a town hall on gun safety legislation at the East Elmhurst Community Library at 11am to discuss how we can work together to keep our communities safe. The East Elmhurst Community Library is located at 9506 Astoria Blvd in East Elmhurst.
A new apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis, on the universal call to holiness, will be released on April 9. The document, entitled Gaudete ex Exsultate, is the third apostolic exhortation, following Evangelii Gaudium in 2013 and Amoris Laetitia in 2016.
Join thousands of international pilgrims for World Youth Day - a powerful moment in which the young people of the world meet Christ, who is eternally young, and learn from Him how to be bearers of the Gospel to other young people. Young adults from the Archdiocese of New York will travel to Panama this upcoming January to take part in these historic celebrations! In conjunction with the Office of Youth Ministry, the Office of Young Adult Outreach will be offering a 5 day trip and an 8 day trip. OPTION I: 8-Day Pilgrimage, January 21 - 28, 2019 Estimated All-Inclusive Package Price: $3200 per person (Quad-Occupancy) OPTION II: 5-Day Pilgrimage, January 24 - 28, 2019 Estimated All-Inclusive Package Price: $2425 per person (Quad-Occupancy) There are still spaces available for young adults (ages 18-35) to travel with the Archdiocese of New York! Contact Mary Elise Zellmer today for more information at [email protected].
Today Catholic Christians celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection of Jesus -Easter. Easter is, in fact, an 8-day celebration, beginning today and continuing throughtout the next seven days and ending next Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday. On behalf of the staff, faculty, and all the ministers of St. Helena's parish, I wish you and those you love a very Happy and Holy Easter and Easter Season! In Catholic Christianity, Easter is considered to be the most important of all feast days. In fact, the early Church Fathers considered it to be so important that they decided to change the Lord’s Day from the Sabbath (Saturday), to Sunday. So, in a sense, every Sunday is a celebration of Easter. Easter, of course, commemorates Jesus’ rising from the tomb after his crucifixion and death. Without the Resurrection, Jesus would have gone down in history as just another person who got himself killed. In the Easter story, Mary Magdalene and a woman that the Bible calls “the other Mary” came to the tomb where Jesus had been buried. What they found, however, was an angel who rolled back the stone at the entrance of the tomb to show them that Jesus was no longer there. The angel said, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples” (Matthew 28: 5-7). Mary Magdalen and her friend, frightened but filled with joy, went and told the disciples the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Many in the Church see Mary Magdalene, therefore, as the first missionary of the Church, taking the good news of Jesus to others. For the next several weeks, we will be celebrating the Easter Season and will learn even more about Easter and its consequences from the Scripture. Easter, however, is more than a historical and religious event. For Catholic Christians, it is also a time of renewal, of rebirth, a time to shed the negatives of our lives and replace them with positives. That is what we see in the amazing story of a man who lived in the Seventeenth Century. His name was Nicholas Herman, but for the ages, he is more commonly known as Brother Lawrence. Nicholas was born around 1614 in the area of Lorraine in eastern France. Because his family was so poor, he joined the army as a teenager so that he could have guaranteed meals and a small stipend. He fought in the Thirty Years’ War until he was injured and had to leave. After leaving the army, Nicholas served as a valet. However, in June of 1640, Nicholas joined the Discalced Carmelite priory in Paris and took the name, “Lawrence of the Resurrection.” He made his solemn profession of vows on August 14, 1642. In the Parisian priory, he spent the rest of his life. For his first years in Religious Life, Brother Lawrence worked in the kitchen as a cook, but later in his life, he found himself repairing sandals of the friars of the community. When he first received the job of cook, Brother Lawrence was not at all pleased. He thought this work was beneath him. But as he grew in the spiritual life, he found himself becoming more peaceful and more joyful. In fact, people began coming to the priory for counseling. Brother Lawrence attributed his joy and peace to a very simple realization: he was always in the presence of God. Lawrence held that as long as he remembered that he was in God’s presence, he would be happy no matter what he was doing – cooking, fixing shoes, attending a party, visiting with friends, praying in the chapel, etc. From his letters and talks with the abbot of the priory, a short book was anonymously written about Brother Lawrence’s wisdom called, The Practice of the Presence of God. It became popular with Protestants and Catholics alike, and even Protestant leaders such as John Wesley recommended it to others. This book even today is considered a Catholic Christian classic. On his deathbed, Brother Lawrence said to those around him, “I am not dying. I am just doing what I have been doing for the past forty years, and doing what I expect to be doing for all eternity!” The friars surrounding him asked, “What is that?” Lawrence replied, “I am worshipping the God I love!” Brother Lawrence died on February 12, 1691 – in the presence of God. From Brother Lawrence and the Easter story, we can learn many things. Here are just two. First, Easter is about new birth. It is a time to shake off the old and take on the new. It is a time to rejuvenate our spiritual lives. Perhaps it means getting out old ruts. Perhaps it means going back to school or reading new things. Perhaps it means taking up a hobby or becoming more generous with our time, talent, and/or treasure. But second, remember that change takes time. We don’t go from zero to high-powered-mystic overnight. Though there have been instances in history where people have had an amazing instantaneous conversion – such as with St. Paul – most of us have to work at building a strong spiritual life day by day. As we continue our life journeys this week, let’s look at our own lives. How are we going to shake up our spiritual lives this Easter Season?