Monthly Newspaper • DIOCESE OF BRIDGEPORT

As we gather around our Thanksgiving dinner tables with our families, friends, and loved ones, let us remember the many blessings we have received. Let us not forget the hardships that we have endured both personally and as a nation. Most of all, let us work diligently and hopefully to heal the broken-hearted because it is in this work that we can celebrate our shared humanity.

Bishop Frank Caggiano

Visit original Facebook post

BRIDGEPORT—For nine years, Sacred Heart University has been raising money to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys for the needy. This year, with the help of motivated students and community members and generous donors, the University exceeded its fundraising goal and purchased 1,300 turkeys, a record-breaking amount.

In the weeks leading up to the annual distribution event at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Bridgeport, volunteer programs & service learning (VPSL) and campus ministry held a food drive and student government conducted a turkey drive. At the end of the food drive, more than 1,000 items were collected and, in part, because of a generous partnership with Harry Garafalo ’80 and the ShopRite of Milford, student government surpassed its target of 700 turkeys by 600. The ShopRite of Milford became SHU’s official turkey drive supplier, providing turkeys to the students below cost in order to have a greater impact this Thanksgiving.

On the chilly Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving, dozens of student-volunteers from VPSL, student government, student life, Greek life and SHU athletics gathered at St. Charles Borromeo Church to pass out turkeys and bags of non-perishable goods to the needy. Groups of warmly dressed students were present with smiles on their faces. As community members started to line up and wait for the food packages, they chatted with students who helped them carry their goods.

“It’s great we’re able to provide so much for the community,” said Anthony Smith, 21, a business management and finance major from New Jersey. “We’re all coming together for the common good. It’s a university-wide effort.”

It was sophomore Maisy Carvalho’s first year doing the turkey drive. As a member of student government, she was put on the turkey drive committee. “I was excited and honored to be a part of it all,” said the 19-year-old media studies major from Rhode Island. Raising $5,000 over their goal was “unreal,” she said.

“Everyone here is so grateful,” Carvalho said. “It’s really great to talk with the community members and make that personal connection.

Arlete Carmona, VPSL office and program manager, said without the food and the turkey drives, people would go hungry. “We’re filling that void,” she said. “It really means a lot to this community.”

A University food truck was also at the church Tuesday morning providing hot chocolate to students and community members.

A week earlier, the University held its annual interfaith service to kick off the season of giving. The food items that were collected were presented at the altar. Sr. Ann Moles of St. Charles, who has been part of the Thanksgiving distribution at the church for decades, was the service’s guest speaker. She was overwhelmed to see how much the community had donated. “We have a good God, don’t we,” Moles said as she held back tears and looked at all the canned goods and non-perishable food items. “I cannot believe how good people are.” She told the guests at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, “you don’t realize how much help this is.”

Moles was at the Bridgeport church Tuesday morning organizing and making sure everything ran smoothly.

DANBURY– Acknowledging regrets and focusing on faith to create a fulfilling life was the message shared with more than one hundred women at a prayer breakfast gathering sponsored by Magnificat.

The Triumphant Heart of Mary Immaculate chapter of the ministry to Catholic women, hosted the event at the Ethan Allen Inn in Danbury earlier this month. The invited guest speaker and author of, “Retreat from the World,” Kathleen Keefe, shared her personal faith-filled journey and advice on dealing with inevitable regrets along life’s path.

“Even the smallest regrets find a nesting place in our hearts and if we don’t look at them, it becomes debris of the heart if left unattended,” Keefe said. “God can’t use us if our hearts are filled with debris.”

Keefe, who was a teacher for 23 years in the South Bronx, has been involved in the teaching and healing ministry since 1987.

Keefe held up a small jewelry-sized bag labeled regrets and explained how she has it hanging on a statue of Lady of Fatima in her home. She said she writes down her regrets, places them in the bag and prays.

“If we are not humble, if we do not pray for Divine Mercy every day, that’s where contamination will seep in,” Keefe said.
Everyone has regrets – from sins in our lives, to choices we make and the impact of other people’s choices on us, she said adding, regrets are often dismissed, repressed or denied.

Keefe said she was inspired to share a story of regret from her childhood that she only recently came to peace with.
She explained that her brother, who suffered a brain injury at birth, had chosen Saint Aloysius for his confirmation name. With her 13-year-old wisdom at the time and two weeks of relentlessly trying to get him to change his mind as only a persistent sibling can, she succeeded, and he took the name Brian – a name she thought was better for him.

He went to be with the Lord almost two years ago and she realized she regretted ever changing his mind about his preferred confirmation name. After praying on it, she was assured that although the earthly name chosen was Brian, the heavenly name he received was Aloysius.

“Special children, God puts on this earth as examples,” Keefe said, reflecting at times with tears in her eyes, humor and poignancy, on how her brother was an example to all who knew him.

Although she said her initial intent was to talk about humility, obedience, forgiveness, love and trust, she was moved to share this childhood story as an example of all those things.

Magnificat breakfasts were happening around the world on this day, and the women in Danbury lifted their voices in unison with them and were accompanied by the praise and worship musical talents of, “Still Small Voice,” who led participants in musical prayer throughout the morning.

Magnificat, which in Latin translates to “(My soul) magnifies (the Lord)” is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary. The Magnificat is a ministry to Catholic women sharing stories of how God is working in their lives. There are 180 chapters around the world.

“It’s been a beautiful journey,” said chapter coordinator Fran Hood, reflecting on the privilege for the past eight years of leading the group and selecting speakers to share their faith-filled journeys. Hood is stepping down from the position and the chapter is actively seeking a new leader.

Guests at the breakfast gathering were each greeted with a table setting that included a rosary and a Magnificat monthly prayer book. A prayer basket was also present on every table for guests to leave their prayer intentions for themselves or others.

“Everyone has a different journey in life. Their experiences may help you in your life,” said Monica Segura, of our Lady of Guadalupe in Danbury. Segura, who has been coming to the Magnificat breakfasts for the past four years brought her friend Ana Guevera to introduce her to Magnificat and all that is has to offer.

“The speaker was very inspiring. I think I will take some of the advice she shared and apply it to my own life,” Guevera said. “If I could do what she said, I could improve my own life.”

At the conclusion of the breakfast, Hood and Keefe were presented with hand-made prayer shawls and women in attendance were given the opportunity to pray with prayer partners.

Keefe met with women after the breakfast exchanging additional stories, words of support for their journey of faith and signing her book, one of dozens of Christian books available for purchase at the event.

“It’s important to ask the Blessed Mother and the Holy Spirit to show us where the regrets are in our lives,” she said, urging everyone to say the Rosary every day and make reparations. “Regrets are opportunities for healing

GREENWICH—St. Mary Church will have a nine-day parish novena in honor of the Immaculate Conception, with guest homilists discussing the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

The novena will begin on Sunday, Dec. 1 at 5:15 pm with a Mass, novena prayers and homily by Bishop Frank J. Caggiano.

The speakers for the subsequent talks are as follows:

Monday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 pm, Father Jon Tveit of St. James Church in Carmel, N.Y., will talk on “The Visitation: Mary Brings the Lord to His People.” There will be Eucharistic Adoration and novena prayers.

Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 7:30 pm, Father Gerald Murray of Holy Family Church in New York City and commentator on EWTN and Fox News, will talk on “Proclamation of the Gospel: Call to Conversion.” There will be Eucharistic Adoration and novena prayers.

Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 pm, Rev. Canon Andrew Todd, ICRSS, of the Oratory of Saints Cyril & Methodius in Bridgeport will talk on “Carrying of the Cross: Our Blessed Mother and the Cross.” There will be Eucharistic Adoration and novena prayers.

Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 pm, Father Leszek Szymaszek of St. Paul Church in Greenwich will talk on “The Eucharist: Do This in Memory of Me.” There will be Eucharistic Adoration and novena prayers.

Friday, Dec. 6 at 7:30 pm, Father Sebastian White, O.P., editor-in-chief of “Magnificat,”  will talk on “The Assumption of Mary: Far Away or Closer Than Ever?” with Eucharistic Adoration and novena prayers.

Saturday, Dec. 7 at 4 pm, Father John Perricone, professor of philosophy at Iona College, will celebrate Mass and deliver a homily on “The Presentation in the Temple: The Mysterious Sweetness of Waiting for God.”

Sunday, Dec. 8 at 5:15 pm, Father Timothy Wiggins of Stepinac High School in White Plains, NY, will celebrate Mass and deliver a homily on “Finding in the Temple: Are We About Our Father’s Business?”

Monday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 pm, Father Cyprian La Pastina, pastor of St. Mary Church, will celebrate Solemn Mass for the Immaculate Conception and give a homily on “The Annunciation: The Highest Honor of Our Race.” Music will be Missa Brevis in C K220, “The Sparrow Mass” by Mozart, with choir and orchestra. After Mass, there will be a reception in the Parish Hall.

(The public is invited and for more information, visit www.stmarygreenwich.org or call the parish office at 203.869.9393. The church is located at 178 Greenwich Avenue.)

BALTIMORE—Bishop Frank J. Caggiano, bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT, has been named chairman of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) board of directors by Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, the newly elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Bishop Caggiano succeeds Bishop Gregory J. Mansour, bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, who had been CRS’ board chairman since November 2016.

“It’s a great honor to lead an organization that is such a bright light for all of our brothers and sisters overseas who don’t have enough to eat or a place to sleep because of entrenched poverty,” Caggiano said. “All of God’s children have the right to live in just and peaceful societies, and for more than 75 years CRS has worked toward making that a reality. I look forward to joining forces to build on all of the organization’s substantial achievements, and to tackling the challenges that affect so many members of God’s family.”

Bishop Caggiano’s term as chair begins immediately and will run until November 2022.

“Bishop Caggiano will be a hands-on leader who will roll up his sleeves and get to work while inspiring others to do the same,” Mansour said. “He speaks with clarity and is laser focused on renewing the Church and tending to its needs. His love and commitment to our Lord Jesus is truly remarkable. ”

Bishop Mansour noted that one of Bishop Caggiano’s strengths is his understanding of the priorities of Catholic youth.

“Young people want to see a Church that is very close to the poor and a Church that is doing works of justice. Bishop Caggiano understands these values and is committed to making sure that youth have a seat at the table in the Church’s outreach to the poor. That’s why he’s a perfect fit for CRS,” Mansour said.

Bishop Caggiano earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1981 from Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception, and began his major seminary studies at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, NY. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1987, and was consecrated as a bishop in 2006.

In 2013, Bishop Caggiano was installed as fifth bishop of Bridgeport, CT. A noted catechist, he was invited by Pope Francis to serve as a catechist at World Youth Day in Panama in 2019 and Rio de Janeiro 2013. Pope Benedict XVI asked him to deliver World Youth Day talks in Madrid in 2011 and Sydney in 2008.

Bishop Caggiano currently serves on a number of USCCB committees, including its committee on Evangelization and Catechesis; its subcommittee on the Catechism, which he chairs; and the Orthodox Union Catholic Dialogue. In addition, he was one of five American bishops elected by the USCCB to represent the United States at the Vatican’s XV Ordinary General Assembly: Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.

“It is a privilege to have Bishop Caggiano serve as our new board chair,” said CRS’ president & CEO Sean Callahan. “He has been actively engaged and supportive of CRS in the Diocese of Bridgeport, and he has sent several of his priests on visits to CRS programs overseas. I am looking forward to traveling with the Bishop as he shares his ministry beyond our national shores, and I am confident that, together, we will broaden the reach of the U.S. Catholic community in the years ahead.”

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. For more information, visit www.crs.org or www.crsespanol.org and follow Catholic Relief Services on social media in English at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube; and in Spanish at: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

By Nikki Gamer | Catholic Relief Services

HIROSHIMA—Saying it is “perverse” to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer, Pope Francis urged a renewed commitment to disarmament and to the international treaties designed to limit or eliminate nuclear weapons.

Pope Francis began his first full day in Japan Nov. 24 with a somber visit in the pouring rain to Nagasaki’s Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, a memorial to the tens of thousands who died when the United States dropped a bomb on the city in 1945. In the evening, he visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, honoring the tens of thousands killed by an atomic bomb there, too.

“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home,” Pope Francis told several hundred people gathered with him in Hiroshima.

“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral, as I already said two years ago.” he said. “We will be judged on this.”

“Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth,” the pope said. “How can we speak of peace even as we build terrifying new weapons of war? How can we speak about peace even as we justify illegitimate actions by speeches filled with discrimination and hate?”

A policy of nuclear deterrence — counting on mutually assured destruction — to keep the peace makes no sense, the pope said. “How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?”

The pope spoke in Hiroshima after listening to the horrifying stories of two survivors of the blast: Yoshiko Kajimoto, who was 14 in 1945; and Kojí Hosokawa, who was 17. Almost everyone they knew then is gone.

Kajimoto was working in a factory when the bomb was dropped. She was buried under timber and tiles, but eventually managed to get free. “When I went outside, all the surrounding buildings were destroyed,” she told the pope. “It was as dark as evening and smelled like rotten fish.

Helping evacuate the injured, she saw “people walking side by side like ghosts, people whose whole body was so burnt that I could not tell the difference between men and women, their hair standing on end, their faces swollen to double size, their lips hanging loose, with both hands held out with burnt skin hanging from them.”

“No one in this world can imagine such a scene of hell,” she said.

Hosokawa, was not able to attend the ceremony with the pope, but his testimony was read out: “I think everyone should realize that the atomic bombs were dropped, not on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but on all humanity.”

“War,” he wrote, “makes people crazy, and the ultimate craziness is the atomic bomb that negated human existence.”

The pope began the day honoring victims of the bombing in Nagasaki, laying a wreath of flowers at a memorial to the 27,000 people killed instantly the day the bomb was dropped and the tens of thousands who died over the next five months from burns and radiation sickness, the pope prayed silently. Then he lighted a peace candle.

The Atomic Hypocenter Park is near the ruins of the city’s Catholic cathedral, which was the largest church in east Asia until the bomb destroyed it. The ruins, including a damaged wooden statue of Mary, are reminders, the pope said, of “the unspeakable horror suffered in the flesh by the victims of the bombing and their families.”

Thinking that developing, stockpiling and modernizing nuclear weapons is a deterrent to war provides only a “false sense of security,” the pope said. What is more, it feeds fear and mistrust, which hinder dialogue.

“Convinced as I am that a world without nuclear weapons is possible and necessary,” the pope said, “I ask political leaders not to forget that these weapons cannot protect us from current threats to national and international security.”

Pope Francis warned of the risk that the international arms control framework is being dismantled. The Vatican has expressed increasing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing delay in beginning talks with Russia on extending or renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and for allowing the U.S.-Russian treaty on intermediate-range weapons to expire.

“A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions of men and women everywhere,” the pope said in Nagasaki.

The use of nuclear weapons is not the only threat the arms pose, he said, pointing to the billions of dollars spent each year on maintaining nuclear stockpiles and developing new weapons when millions of people are starving and dying in poverty.

“No one can be indifferent to the pain of millions of men and women whose sufferings trouble our consciences today,” he said. “No one can turn a deaf ear to the plea of our brothers and sisters in need. No one can turn a blind eye to the ruin caused by a culture incapable of dialogue.”

While acknowledging that many of the people who joined him at the hypocenter were not Catholics, he still asked them to join him in echoing the prayer of St. Francis and asking God “to teach us to be effective instruments of peace and to make every effort not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

A famous photo stood on an easel next to the small covered platform where the pope spoke. The picture, taken by U.S. Marine photographer Joseph Roger O’Donnell, shows a small boy carrying on his back his dead little brother, taking him to the crematorium in Nagasaki.

In late 2017 and early 2018, Pope Francis had prayer cards printed with the image on it and distributed widely, including in Japan. On the back of the card, the pope wrote, “The fruit of war.”

By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service

WESTON—Jeffrey Couture wouldn’t come to Jesus, so Jesus came to him…in person…face to face…in all His majestic splendor.

He came to him and led him away from what he know views as a sinful, self-destructive life, away from the recklessness of a “rock on roll” lifestyle he had slipped into after abandoning the faith his parents had instilled in him as a boy. It was a painful and circuitous path for Jeffrey, but one that took him to a new life, as Father Jeffrey Couture. 

 Jeffrey’s fascination with rock ’n’ roll began at 8 years old when his father Fern gave him a Hagstrom guitar and began teaching him to play. Fern and his wife Judy were devout Catholics who made their triplet sons and daughter attend Mass and Catholic school at St. Thomas Aquinas and Holy Family in Fairfield.

But by the time Jeffrey reached 8th grade, he had started straying from the Church. God became irrelevant. He had found a new god — heavy metal groups like Motley Crew, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Black Sabbath. And by the time he joined his first band, High Treason, he had begun to reject God.

“I started listening to heavy metal and strayed from the Church,” he recalls. “But you are what you listen to, just like you are what you eat. I was a kid trying to live the life—the life of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.”

“I didn’t go to class my freshman year at Fairfield High School because I partied a lot,” he recalls, “so I dropped out and explored playing in a band.”

His father gave him an ultimatum and told him that if he wasn’t going to follow the rules, he had to find another place to live, so Jeffrey moved to Florida and for $400 a month got to sleep on a couch in his sister’s friend’s apartment. He worked nights at Winn-Dixie and at 4 am, when his shift was over, he joined the other “metalheads” and partied at bars on Fort Lauderdale beach. 

At 19, he was working at a convenience store, into all the wrong things and dreaming about being a heavy-metal guitarist. That’s when Jesus stepped into his life in a decisive way. While Jeffrey was selling his blood at a blood bank, there were complications because of the substances he was taking, and he had a near-death experience.

“I woke up on the other side in a big black abyss, and the only illumination came from a light on a hill,” he recalls. “I knew I was dead instantly. I knew God existed instantly. I knew I was in purgatory, and I could see Heaven in the distance.”

In that moment, he understood his errors and the gravity of his sins.

He said: “It was like, ‘Wow, my parents were right about God!’ I was wrong. I had denied God. Ignorance is one thing. But I had rejected Him.”

Around him were millions of souls facing heaven and waiting outside the gates to get in, but Jeffrey couldn’t get any closer because of his sins.

“I could feel love, grace and everything you could possibly desire and want. It was there in heaven, but the evil in my soul wouldn’t let me go there even though the desire in my soul wanted to be there,” he said. “That agony of not being in heaven is hellish. You burn with desire, and that is the burning of purgatory. It is the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

As soon as Jeffrey arrived, his guardian angel came to meet him. He was tall and dressed like a Samurai warrior in brilliantly shining armor. He carried two swords in sheaths crossed in front of him, and he wore a breastplate with overlaid sheets of steel on his arms and hands and a helmet that covered part of his face. His skin was translucent and his eyes were solid black.

The angel took him back to Earth for a review of his life that revealed every sin and every consequence.

“When I experienced a sin I could feel the effect of it on my soul and the effect of it on the other person,” he said. “I saw whenever I put myself into mortal sin and when I was responsible for those I had led into sin. And every time I experienced it, I could feel it press upon my heart and take away part of my sanctity.”

At the end of his life review, the angel told Jeffrey that he deserved to go to hell.

“I accepted it,” he said. “I had to accept it because I had chosen those things. The soul cannot deny the truth of itself. It has to give it to God’s justice.”

Even though he was in purgatory, he knew that hell was behind him, but his angel would not let him look.

“When I accepted my judgment, I felt a great sadness in my heart, not because I would be punished but because I realized Jesus is real,” he said. “I could feel His presence and His love for me and I knew He didn’t want me to go there. And I felt sorry.”

At that moment, Jesus appeared in all His majesty.

“It was like a lightning bolt behind me and I could feel energy pulsating,” he recalls. “He was huge, like a mountain, and then suddenly He was standing behind me in human form. When He made His presence known, I could feel the evil in me trying to escape. Goodness and light and purity were emanating from Him, and darkness cannot exist in the Light.”

“At first, I was afraid to turn around to face Him because I felt that if I looked at Him, I would die, but He made me look,” he said. 

Jesus resembled the image of Divine Mercy, but his hair, eyes and body were emanating light like white fire. No description can capture the immensity of Jesus, Father Jeffrey said.

Then, He opened his mouth and a pillar of fire came out and went into Father, and Jesus said, “I love you. And I forgive you. Do unto others as I have done unto you.”

“He purified my soul and filled it with grace,” Father Jeffrey said. “It was the only time in my life I have ever felt complete and filled and loved more than anything.”

Then, his angel returned him to his body, and when he woke, he was being driven home. Immediately, the real world seemed fake and temporal, a shell. Reality was what he had left behind.

“Within a week, I cut my hair and broke off with all my friends,” Father Jeffrey said. He took a Greyhound Bus to Colorado and moved in with his aunt and uncle, who told him he had to live by a few simple rules: No drugs, no trouble and Church on Sunday. The next day he found a job at Waffle House and met a priest who helped him in his recovery.

During his three years in Colorado, he overcame his addictions and began to think he might have a calling to the priesthood. He eventually went into plumbing and started dating a  young woman, but the question about his future remained a mystery.

“Life was just throwing stuff at me,” he said. “I said to my aunt, ‘I don’t know what I want to do — all I want to do is serve God.’ She asked what kind of money I wanted to make and I said I didn’t care about money. I just wanted to serve God, study the Bible, serve others and share my life with them.”

She told him to consider the priesthood and urged him to pray over it. Then, one day at church, a nun was there talking about vocations and pointed at him and said, “Son, you know when God is calling you to be a priest.”

“I heard the voice of God say, ‘Come follow me.’” And that’s what he started to do, but not without challenges.

When he applied to St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford in 1994, then-rector Monsignor Stephen DiGiovanni sent him back to get a high school diploma. He took a two-year break from the seminary and got some tutoring. In 1999 he returned, and in 2001 he graduated from Sacred Heart University and went to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He took another break and was away for five years as he grappled with the possibility of marriage. During that time, he managed a Starbucks in Greenwich, but thoughts of the priesthood persisted. Very often, people would ask him about God. He couldn’t elude the fact he was being called.

“God was giving me such a sign,” he says.

He moved to Florida, where he taught religion at a Catholic high school. Once, while he was sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament and praying to discern his vocation, he recalled something Mother Teresa told him when he met her in New York City. She had grabbed his hand and said, “Follow Jesus. Follow Him — don’t let Him follow you.” And he realized that for so long, he was trying to lead Jesus.

“At that moment, I just said, ‘I surrender.’” Since then, he has never ever doubted his vocation and never looked back. 

He was ordained in 2010 and has served at St. Edward the Confessor Church in New Fairfield, St. Mary’s in Bethel and St. Peter’s in Danbury. He has also been chaplain at Immaculate High School in Danbury and Western Connecticut State University. For the past year, he has been pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Weston.

“This life is temporary,” Father Jeffrey says. “We’re destined for heaven, and God has a plan for each of us. We have to fulfill Jesus’s mission for us. We all have our own way of doing that. Mine is as a priest. Our goal is to go home to Heaven and lead as many people there as possible.” And that is what he is trying to do…one day at a time.

WESTON—Saturday, December 14 and Sunday, December 15 will be the Eat, Drink and SHOP Merry Vendor Fair at St. Francis of Assisi, located at 35 Norfield Road in Weston. The fair will run from noon-7pm on Saturday and from 10 am-4 pm on Sunday.

Twenty-five vendors will be selling their wares, including local crafters and merchants offering a variety of beautiful and unique holiday gift creations. Drawings for prizes will be held approximately every hour.

St. Francis of Assisi Parish is delighted to create this event for both the local community and for all of our neighbors in Fairfield County to enjoy a festive environment within which to holiday shop, enjoy a cold or hot beverage as well as to support local businesses. For families, there will also be an old fashioned Christmas Tree lighting outside the church at 6 pm on Saturday, with a sing-along of traditional Christmas songs. This will be staged by the Church’s crèche, a beautiful, life-sized Nativity scene. All are welcome.

St. Francis pastor, Father Jeff Couture, says, “Our Church fair, around Christmas, is a tradition that brings back many childhood memories for those of us who grew up with them and new ones for those who have not. Our fair will bring many people in the communities together to share in the Christmas spirit, as well as get many of our shopping done on our lists while at the same time supporting our ministries.”

Jr’s Mobile Catering of Westport will be selling a variety of grilled food items, while inside the hall, Christmas baked goods provided by the St. Francis Women’s Guild and hot chocolate will be available. A beverage station provided by the Knights of Columbus including wine, beer and prosecco will add a special “merriment” to the festivities.

For more information visit the event page at: www.stfrancisweston.org/events/eat-drink-and-shop-merry.

BANGKOK—Missionaries are not mercenaries, but beggars who recognize that some brothers and sisters are missing from the community and long to hear the good news of salvation, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand.

Celebrating Mass Nov. 21, the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Bangkok’s National Stadium, Pope Francis looked at the meaning of what he calls “missionary discipleship.”

Pope Francis’ visit was part of the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the establishment of the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam Mission, the first Catholic jurisdiction in what was to become Thailand.

In his homily, the pope said the early missionaries realized “they were part of a family much larger than any based on blood lines, cultures, regions or ethnic groups,” and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, “they set out in search of family members they did not yet know.”

The missionaries didn’t see the Thai people as pagans or nonbelievers, but as brothers and sisters, the pope said. And they did not just want to share the Gospel with the Thai people, but wanted “to receive what they needed to grow in their own faith and understanding of the Scriptures.”

“A missionary disciple is not a mercenary of the faith or a producer of proselytes, but rather a humble mendicant who feels the absence of brothers, sisters and mothers with whom to share the irrevocable gift of reconciliation that Jesus grants to all,” the pope said.

Pope Francis said he came to Thailand for the anniversary not to encourage some kind of nostalgia for the past, but to help spark “a fire of hope” to help Catholics today reach out to others with the same “determination, strength and confidence” the early missionaries had.

The anniversary, he said, should be “a festive and grateful commemoration that helps us to go forth joyfully to share the new life born of the Gospel with all the members of our family whom we do not yet know.”

Those family members, the pope said, include the “children and women who are victims of prostitution and human trafficking, humiliated in their essential human dignity,” and deserving of God’s love and promise of salvation.

They also include “young people enslaved by drug addiction” and “migrants, deprived of their homes and families, and so many others, who like them can feel orphaned, abandoned,” but deserve a family and a helping hand, Pope Francis said.

“All of them are part of our family,” the pope said. “They are our mothers, our brothers and sisters. Let us not deprive our communities of seeing their faces, their wounds, their smiles and their lives. Let us not prevent them from experiencing the merciful balm of God’s love that heals their wounds and pains.”

“A missionary disciple knows that evangelization is not about gaining more members or about appearing powerful,” the pope said. “Rather, it is about opening doors in order to experience and share the merciful and healing embrace of God the Father, which makes of us one family.”

Pauline Sister Maria Parichat Jullamonthon, a member of the communications team for the papal visit, said that for her, the first thing isn’t to bring her Buddhist neighbors into the Catholic Church, “but to share with them the values that will make peace and harmony.”

“To be a missionary is to go out and love,” she said.

Deacon Paul Loonubon, 29, a seminarian for the Diocese of Udon Thani, said his country is fortunate to have the pope visiting. “The pope gives the world peace, and he gives peace to my heart.”

Earlier in the day, the pope visited St. Louis Hospital, which Catholics have been operating since 1898.

Before touring the hospital and visiting dozens of patients, Pope Francis spoke to about 700 doctors, nurses and other staff members in the hospital auditorium.

Where Catholics are tiny minority, and even where they aren’t, the pope said, “it is precisely in the exercise of charity that we Christians are called not only to demonstrate that we are missionary disciples, but also to take stock of our own fidelity, and that of our institutions, to the demands of that discipleship.”

Catholic doctors, nurses, hospital staff and volunteers have a unique opportunity to see and honor “the sacred grandeur” of the human person and to recognize God present in each one, he said. They welcome and embrace “human life as it arrives at the hospital’s emergency room, needing to be treated with the merciful care born of love and respect.”

In treating patients, he said, the doctors and nurses carry out “a powerful anointing capable of restoring human dignity in every situation, a gaze that grants dignity and provides support.”

Pope Francis called the hospital’s work “a living testimony of the care and concern that all of us are called to show to everyone, especially the elderly, the young and those most vulnerable.”

By Cindy Woodan | Catholic News Service

BANGKOK—Catholics and Buddhists share should work together to advance the cause of mercy in the world, Pope Francis said Thursday during a historic meeting with the Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Thailand.

“Thanks to scholarly exchanges, which lead to greater mutual understanding, as well as the exercise of contemplation, mercy and discernment – common to both our traditions – we can grow and live together as good ‘neighbors,’” the pope said Nov. 21.

When Catholics and Buddhists “have the opportunity to appreciate and esteem one another in spite of our differences, we offer a word of hope to the world, which can encourage and support those who increasingly suffer the harmful effects of conflict.”

Pope Francis met with His Holiness Somdej Phra Maga Muneewong at the Wat Ratchabophit Sathit Maha Simaram Temple in Bangkok, during a six-day Asian trip to Thailand and Japan.

The Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Thailand is the head of Buddhist monasticism in the country. He is chosen from among senior Buddhist monks and appointed by the country’s king. Somdej Phra Maga Muneewong, the 20th Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, was appointed to the role in 2017.

The position has both spiritual and political significance in Thailand, and Muneewong’s appointment was not without some controversy, especially among monastic factions with Thai Buddhism. Before Muneewong was chosen for the role by the king, another Thai monk had the endorsement of senior monastic leaders in the country, but he was accused by the military of tax evasion before being officially selected. His supporters said that charge was trumped up, and opposed the selection of Muneewong.

The pope noted that Catholics and Buddhists can “contribute to the formation of a culture of compassion, fraternity and encounter, both here and in other parts of the world. I am sure that this journey will continue to bear fruit in abundance.”

Pope Francis’ visit to Thailand is intended to encourage the small Catholic community living in the Buddhist-majority country. The pope also has several interreligious meetings while in the country.

“On this path of mutual trust and fraternity, I wish to reiterate my personal commitment, and that of the whole Church, to furthering an open and respectful dialogue in the service of the peace and well-being of this people,” the pope said.

Francis noted that his visit follows in the footsteps of St. Pope John Paul II, who met the Supreme Buddhist Patriarch at the same temple in 1984.

St. Pope Paul VI was also visited by the Supreme Buddhist Patriarch at the Vatican almost 50 years ago, Francis said.

“Such small steps help testify that the culture of encounter is possible,” he stated, “not only within our communities but also in our world, so prone to creating and spreading conflict and exclusion.”

After giving prepared speeches, Pope Francis and the Supreme Patriarch had a brief informal conversation, in which they spoke about the value of fraternity between the two religions for promoting peace.

“If we are brothers, we can help world peace,” the poor, and the suffering, Pope Francis said, “because to help the poor is always a path of blessing.”

They also spoke about education and the role of missionaries in the country. Before leaving, the two exchanged blessings.

By Hannah Brockhaus | Catholic News Agency

WILTON—On Saturday, November 16, the Academy Parent Committee (APC) held its 5th annual International Family Night. This highly anticipated event encouraged school families to prepare their favorite dishes, each representative of their respective nationality. A bountiful buffet was served by family members, with some wearing their ancestral country’s national colors or traditional dress. This year’s event featured culinary creations from 16 countries including Cambodia, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, England, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Romania and the U.S.A. 

“This is one of my favorite Fatima events because it speaks to the diversity or our school and allows the community to share traditions with one another,” said Principal Stanley Steele. Clara Taveras, Academy school board member who leads the APC noted, “This event has evolved into a beloved tradition and offers an opportunity for Academy families with children of all ages to participate and bond over a special meal.”

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Academy is a Roman Catholic co-educational, National Blue Ribbon School. With a rich history of Catholic education and academic excellence spanning over 57 years, the Academy offers a Personalized Approach to Learning for each student in Pre-K3 through Grade 8. Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Academy is located at 225 Danbury Road, Wilton, Conn.

(For questions regarding school tours or rolling admissions contact Stanley Steele, principal at ssteele@olfcatholic.org or 203.762.8100. Visit the school website at: www.olfacademy.org.)

STAMFORD—Frances Xavier Cabrini was 38 years old when she first came to America in 1889 with six religious sisters, inspired by the hope of helping Italian immigrants in their new homeland, which held promise but more often prejudice.

After arriving in New York from Italy, the sisters encountered challenges both in the Church and society, said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Paul Moses, whose book, “An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians,” explores the Italian and Irish immigration experience.

During her life, Mother Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was driven by her devotion to the Sacred Heart to travel across the globe and establish 67 institutions to help immigrants and the dispossessed.

“She went into many impoverished homes, across continents, through jungles, deep into mines where Italian immigrants labored, and prisons, hospitals, classrooms and church basements,” Moses said.

Her example is particularly relevant today, given our national debate about immigration, Moses said during a talk at Sacred Heart Church on Sunday, following a Mass celebrated in her honor by Bishop Frank J. Caggiano.

“I find Mother Cabrini to be an inspiring figure,” Moses said. “She accomplished so much and was an amazing woman who had to deal with her own fears and overcome health problems to accomplish all she did. She combined traditional Catholic piety and her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with practical social outreach to people who were marginalized.”

She was the first naturalized U.S. citizen to be proclaimed a saint in 1946 and today is recognized as the patron saint of immigrants.

Much of the adversity she confronted came from the hostility between the Italians and the Irish, which is the theme of Moses’ book. But prejudice also was prevalent in the Archdiocese of New York, where Italian immigrants from Southern Italy were often treated as second class and had to hold their services in church basements amid complaints they did not contribute enough money.

“The U.S. Catholic bishops took some time to warm up to the immigrants flooding into the United States from Italy, starting in the 1880s,” Moses said. “They were under pressure from the Vatican to address the needs of the immigrants.”

One of Mother Cabrini’s principal antagonists was Archbishop Michael Corrigan, who at one point during a tense meeting recommended that she and her sisters return to Italy, to which she promptly responded, “No, not that, Your Excellency. I am here by order of the Holy See, and here I must stay.”

It was Pope Leo XIII, himself, who asked her to go to New York, instead of China, which had been her hope since childhood. As he told her, “Not to the East, but to the West,” which is where she helped hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the United States.

Mother Cabrini also founded an academy in Nicaragua and had other projects in Latin America. In 1892, she traveled to New Orleans so three sisters could begin a mission in the city where 11 Italians had been lynched for the death of the police chief, despite being acquitted of the crime.

“While society at large smeared these Italian immigrants as criminals, Mother Cabrini opened her heart to them and saw them as people,” Moses said.

In recent months, Mother Cabrini has also been a topic of political wrangling in New York City after a mayoral commission turned down a recommendation to erect a statue in her honor.

“The larger question is how can we honor Mother Cabrini,” Moses said. “A statue in the nation’s largest city in the place where she began her ministry to immigrants would certainly be a good way to honor her…And the institutions that she founded are monuments to her. But we can also honor her by emulating her love for people whom society may despise, people who are marginalized — especially immigrants — and by finding the compassion to overcome society’s prejudices, person to person, in our everyday actions.”

The event was organized by Peter Maloney, a board member of Catholic Charities of Fairfield County.

“Catholic Charities is doing all the things on behalf of the Diocese of Bridgeport that Mother Cabrini did,” he said. “We are feeding the poor, we are housing the homeless and we are also helping immigrants by providing localized legal services in Fairfield County.”

Proceeds from the sale of Moses’ book following his talk were donated to Catholic Charities. (“An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians” is available at Amazon.com)

Moses is also author of “The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace,” which won the Catholic Press Association award for the year’s best history book and became the basis for the Emmy-nominated PBS docudrama titled “The Sultan and the Saint.”

Moses worked for 23 years in daily journalism, mostly at Newsday’s New York City edition. He served as the paper’s City Hall bureau chief, Brooklyn editor, city editor and religion writer. As a rewrite man, he wrote the paper’s lead stories on the World Trade Center attack and on a subway crash that killed five people, the latter winning the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting in 1992. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Maureen.

In these last days of the current pastoral year, I am reading through the First Book of Maccabees for my daily spiritual reflection. As you may recall, the Maccabees were a deeply religious Jewish family that refused the orders of the Greek king to abandon the requirements of the Law. The two Books of Maccabees relate the story of their valiant, courageous and sacrificial resistance against such betrayal of the Covenant.

What I had not noticed in prior times when I prayed over the Book of Maccabees was a small footnote that accompanies Chapter One. It highlights one of the most effective ways by which the Greeks won over Jewish youth to follow their pagan ways. The Greeks constructed a gymnasium in the center of Jerusalem and through sports and youth clubs tried to attract, form and indoctrinate young Jews to abandon their parents’ faith and follow “the ways of the world.”

We all know that sports have tremendous value in the formation of young people. It provides them an opportunity to work together for a common cause, learn the value of fair play and helps them to form friendships that can last for a lifetime. Years ago, the Church often utilized sports as a way to attract young people to their parishes, keep them involved in the community’s life, teach them to pray and also helped create a bridge to greater involvement in Mass and the Church’s other sacraments. CYO was the classical example of such an outreach.

Sadly, in recent years, the Church has not always emphasized the need to provide sports as a way to evangelize young people. However, the world has continued to do so, testified by the fact that many gyms have fuller parking lots on Sunday morning than many of our churches.

It seems to me that as we prepare to revitalize our ministry to youth and young adults, it is time to use sports once again to give our youth a path by which they can give glory to Christ.

The previous reflection originally appeared on Bishop Frank Caggiano’s Facebook page. Follow the Bishop for daily reflections and weekly videos.

The dried leaves of mid-November swirled around the gravestones of a rural cemetery as late-day clouds threatened a storm. In a far corner, near centuries’ old oaks, 25 members of my family gathered around a flat rectangular stone, greeting each other, embracing, and making a few introductions. We were not mourning a recently deceased relative, however, but celebrating the lives of seven ancestors whose names, until now, were seemingly forgotten.

My brother has always had a fascination with genealogy and spent decades researching our father’s family, whose ancestors emigrated from Sweden in the late 19^th century. After moving past the penciled family trees and ancestry.com results, he traveled around the state to visit gravesites, former residences, and genealogical societies to fill in the blanks of our descendants’ lives. Over the years, I showed mild interest in his findings, nodding my head and uttering the casual “Oh, really? That’s interesting,” until a recent discovery gave us all a reason to reconnect to our past – and to each other.

When my brother realized that upon their deaths, our great-great-grandparents and several of their children were buried in unmarked graves, ancestry suddenly became more than a faded photograph or a facsimile on a computer screen. We knew how easily these lives could be forgotten, so my brother set out to memorialize them with a proper marker. They deserved better, he said, after enduring the hardships of a laborer’s life and the premature deaths of several children who were buried without a gravestone. What they deserved, as we all do, was the dignity of a designated resting place.

We all say how important family is, how we would do anything for each other when needs arise, but none of us expected the generous donations that came in from relatives across the country, from Pennsylvania and Missouri to California, Maryland, and Connecticut – all to fund a 2’ x 4’ gravestone for people we never knew.

After years of lying beneath unmarked sod, our ancestors would, at last, be remembered, with a sacred blessing and an engraved granite stone around which we gathered on this brisk November day. As we huddled together waiting for the prayer service to begin, I saw my daughters talking with third cousins they had just met, my husband shaking hands with a relative we hardly knew and my father gazing at the grave of his own parents, now deceased for decades.

This is my family, I thought, though one that extends beyond the obvious connotation of those with whom I live. It truly was my family, and despite the distance of time or place, it is they who hold the same storied history that descends from an immigrant couple who, until this day, was barely a thought. In that moment, I saw that 100 years after their deaths, it was their lives – and our desire to remember them – that drew us together. I found myself in sudden awe at the incredulity of it all.

My brother introduced a local pastor who welcomed us, blessed the stone with seven engraved names, and, quoting from Isaiah 43, said, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Though lost for so long, they were each at one time called by name, a name that God always knew – and now ones that we knew as well.

As the service ended, we embraced again, adding a “Happy Thanksgiving” to all our good wishes. That sentiment took on a renewed meaning, as we rejoiced in thanksgiving for our kinship, our shared history, and the knowledge that our ancestors could now rest easy with their names no longer forgotten.

COLLECTING MOMENTS

By Emily Clark