BISHOP DAVID M, O’CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED the following message as the Church prepares for Holy Week. Read the complete message HERE. During our preparations for the Synod of Bishops 2023-2024, the Catholic Church and its leaders have focused upon the idea of a “journey” through life. Holy Week is part of that journey and is, in fact, a journey of its own, following the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Holy Season of Lent draws to a close and Holy Week begins, it is time for all Catholics to prepare deeply for the Church’s annual commemoration of the Lord Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection and to “journey” with him.
Saturday will be the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, and our thoughts turn to 25 March last year, when, in union with all the bishops of the world, the Church and humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine, were consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us not tire of entrusting the cause of peace to the Queen of Peace. I would therefore like to invite every believer and community, especially prayer groups, to renew every 25 March the Act of Consecration to Our Lady, so that she, who is Mother, may preserve us all in unity and peace
Our Holy Father Pope Francis has made our brother priest in the Diocese, Kevin Kimtis, a “Chaplain to his Holiness” with the title “Monsignor.” Msgr. Kimtis was ordained in 2011 and is currently serving as Secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio to India in New Delhi. He will be visiting home at the end of this month. Congratulations, Msgr. Kimtis!
“Being Church means being God’s people, in accordance with the great plan of his fatherly love. This means that we are to be God’s leaven in the midst of humanity. It means proclaiming and bringing God’s salvation into our world, which often goes astray and needs to be encouraged, given hope and strengthened on the way. The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium, 114).” – Pope Francis
A catechist formation day is planned March 18 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, 61 Georgia Road, Freehold. The event is co-sponsored by the diocesan Department of Catechesis and Loyola Press.
The Lenten Season invites us to take a step back and focus on ways we can spend our time intentionally. For a lot of us with bustling families, it’s not always easy to find time to sit down around the dining room table and enjoy a meal together; it’s more like packed meals or a drive-thru dinner in the car between pick-ups.
The Holy Season of Lent brings with it the serious annual penitential obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent. This year, 2023, however, Friday of the second week of Lent corresponds with Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), which has traditionally been an occasion for special celebrations.
DURING THE DAYS AND WEEKS OF PENANCE THAT LIE AHEAD — from Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, until Holy Thursday, April 6 — the Catholic Church throughout the world commemorates the penitential season of Lent ending with the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week. The model Jesus gave us for “these 40 days” was his own experience in the desert and the temptations that followed him there where he encountered Satan face to face. And yet, Jesus, there in the desert — alone, fasting and in intense prayer — beat back the devil and triumphed over temptation, as strong and as unrelenting as it was throughout those 40 days.
BISHOP DAVID M.O'CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THIS MESSAGE FOR THE SEASON OF LENT: From Ashes to Easter: Lent’s Journey is Life’s Journey As with so many traditions in the Church, Lent has evolved over the years. People began to emphasize more “giving” rather than “giving up.” The sober and serious tone of the forty days of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday, became lighter and less intense.
BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THIS MESSAGE FOR THE WORLD DAY OF THE SICK 2023 A call to compassion and care In his 2023 message for the annual “World Day of the Sick,” our Holy Father Pope Francis reminds us that “iIllness is part of our human condition. Yet, if illness is experienced in isolation and abandonment, unaccompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane.”
“We are a Eucharistic people.” This profound truth is at the heart of the 2023 Annual Catholic Appeal, set to launch in all parishes the weekend of Feb. 18-19.
Bishop David M. O’Connell has shared the following message for National Marriage Week 2023: Before the liturgical changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), women and men entering a sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church heard an “exhortation” read by the priest about the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Catholic schools in the Diocese of Trenton, including diocesan, parish and independent schools, along with other public and non-public schools throughout the state, are required to comply with NJ state health law governing vaccinations of students and adults working in our schools.
BISHOP DAVID M. O'CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THIS MESSAGE for the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life, Feb. 2. People will occasionally ask me what the letters “CM” mean after my name. As a member of a religious community in the Church, I am identified as belonging to that religious community by its initials. “CM” designates membership in the Congregation of the Mission, more popularly known as “the Vincentians.”
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK begins Sunday, January 29 and concludes Saturday, February 4. Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., has shared this message for Catholic Schools Week 2023. One of the greatest contributions of the Catholic Church in our country remains the establishment of Catholic schools. Millions of young Catholics (and numerous non-Catholics) have been educated in Catholic schools since the very foundation of the United States. In the face of unrelenting obstacles and widespread social opposition, colonial Franciscan missionaries, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and her sisters, St. John Neumann and his co-workers, laid the foundation for the most extensive Catholic school system in the world. It is their legacy that we commemorate during Catholic Schools Week.
THIS WEEKEND, JAN. 21-22, THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, the Catholic Church throughout the world will celebrate the recently established “Word of God Sunday” with the theme “We proclaim what we have seen” (1 John 1:3).
BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., RELEASED AN ADVISORY ON DIOCESE OF TRENTON MEDIA that he had just received Jan. 17 regarding approval by the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See of a plenary indulgence (total remission of temporal punishment for sin) in connection with the 2023 March for Life in Washington and accompanying events Thursday, January 19 and Friday, January 20.
BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THE FOLLOWING message in observance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which is being observed this year Jan. 16: In Harper Lee’s 1960 novel “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Atticus Finch is appointed as defense lawyer for Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a young white girl in Depression-Era Alabama. Toward the end of Chapter Three, Finch shares his uncompromisingly noble moral philosophy regarding racism and its attendant stereotyping with his six-year-old daughter, Scout. “You never really understand a person,” Atticus tells her, “Until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO TRULY BUILD A CULTURE OF LIFE and how can the Church come together to make it happen? These topics are addressed by Rachel Hendricks, coordinator of Respect Life Ministry for the Diocese of Trenton, during her interview for Talking Catholic, a podcast of the Diocese of Camden that will be aired beginning Jan. 15.