As the lawless and barbarian invasion of Ukraine continues, so too must our spirit of solidarity and our readiness to respond in prayer and Christian charity.
The weekend of September 15-16 can provide a boost to our parish efforts in this regard.
Friday, September 15 happens to be the Slovakian patronal national feast of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. And it also happens to be the evening when the Diocese of Metuchen is celebrating its annual Mass of Hispanic Heritage at the Cathedral of St. Francis, a Mass so popular that we almost had to cancel our 7pm Spanish Mass last year.
This year we’ll fill that gap with a special Mass at the same 7pm time slot, mostly in Slovak, celebrating Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, especially in light of the Ukraine tragedy in the same Central European neighborhood.
The next morning, we’ll go to Slovakia — virtually, that is — to have a conversation with Caritas Slovakia’s Ukraine team: Dominkia Simonoffyova and Terka Pankova about what they’re doing and how our donations from Bound Brook are being used. Hint: the donations are making a difference in the area of basic human needs of hygiene, especially. The September 16 events starts, if you’d like, with our 8am Mass (back to English), a continental breakfast, and then we’ll ZOOM to Bratislava from the church. You can also join online, and we’ll have that link available shortly.