Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Mary Church in Denville March 13 and celebrated Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. During his visit, the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to young people of the parish who have been preparing for the sacrament for the past two years.

Anticipation mounts as the drummers tap out a crisp roll off. Then, the bagpipers play a low bass drone, before taking a breath to begin the plaintive wail of an old Irish favorite, such as “Minstrel Boy.” The music swells as the pipe band marches past a cheering crowd on a city street in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade — a thrill that Father Jared Brogan, a diocesan priest, had known for 13 years, while playing the bagpipes in two renowned pipe bands in New York City.

For more than a century, the Shroud of Turin has remained one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the world. Scientists, historians and Christians alike have pondered the authenticity of the Shroud, which many people believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus the Messiah. Whose image does it bear exactly? And how did the image of a crucified man get imprinted on the cloth — by a great miracle of God or by the hands of a talented artist?

Three elementary schools in the Diocese — All Saints Academy in Parsippany, St Anthony School in Hawthorne, and St. Catherine of Bologna School in Ringwood — have received AdvancED STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) certification.

The Diocese announced March 14 that it will freeze its lay employee pension plan, effective June 30, and will establish a new redefined contribution retirement savings plan for lay employees, effective July 1.

March 17 is the deadline for the U.S. State Depart­ment to declare Christians as victims of genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) under an omnibus bill passed in December. Both the European Union and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — a bipartisan federal commission that advises the State Department — have already declared that genocide is taking place against Christians, but the State Department continues to remain silent on the issue.

The New Year starts in full swing with ceiling, HVAC, electrical, stained glass window, plaster, and choir loft floor work in progress, simultaneously.

Start of a new year and end of Phase II exterior renovations. Exterior stained glass window work continues.

 On Sunday, March 6, Bishop Serratelli presided over the annual combined Boy Scout and Girl Scout Sunday Mass at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Parsippany where he presented Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts with religious awards and special Boy Scout recognition for adult leaders and a troop.

People in Guatemala — both young and old — were truly grateful that they finally were able to feel real relief from their many skeletal and muscular problems in their backs, limbs and joints. Coming to their rescue were the healing hands of a group of physical therapy students from the University of Scranton that included Michael Balcon of Our Lady of the Moun­tain (OLM) Parish in Long Valley.

After a 45-year commitment to serving those most in need in the Church of Paterson, Joseph Duffy has announced that he plans to retire and step down from his duties as president of Catholic Charities and executive director of Straight and Narrow in Paterson, effective June 30.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish (OLQP), located in the Hewitt section of West Milford Township Sunday, Feb. 28, where he celebrated the noon Mass to mark the Third Sunday of Lent.

Four years after Partners in Faith — the diocesan capital and endowment campaign — kicked-off, parishes around the Paterson Diocese are once again witnessing the works of the generous donations and pledges made by the faithful throughout Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties within their own faith communities.

When the Lord bestows His mercy on us He “welcomes us back into the joy of His family” with the most important sentiment ever written or spoken: “I love you.” Bishop Serratelli proclaimed that message for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, encouraging the faithful to seek out the boundless mercy of God and then sharing it with other people, while serving as the main celebrant and homilist at all four weekend Masses in English and Spanish at St. Margaret of Scotland Church in Morristown on March 5-6.

March 23 is a date that will be important to religious freedom in this nation. On that date, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Little Sisters of the Poor case in Zubik v. Burwell — a case that also includes several other ministries. It is a religious freedom case that will most certainly have far reaching consequences when the decision is handed down by the highest court in the land.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Boonton Feb. 27 where he celebrated the vigil Mass Saturday evening to mark the Third Sunday of Lent.

In today’s fast-paced world, sometimes Catholic women are so busy that finding time to sit back and think about faith and spirituality is difficult. But whether they are stay-at-home moms, physicians, teachers or bank managers, they need to make time for praying and reflecting to strengthen their faith.

Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM) at William Paterson University, Wayne, recently kicked off its new “Faith on Fire” faith-formation series. It seeks to give participating students a more mature grasp of their Catholicism, by first exploring the very heart of the faith: the Eucharist.

It was a day like any other day last month at the Department for Persons with Disabilities (DPD), an agency of diocesan Catholic Charities. That all changed with a phone call at 1:30 p.m. And by that evening, the DPD had once again changed someone’s life for the better by providing a new home for Margaret, a 25-year-old woman with Down syndrome after tragedy struck her life that day.

Catholics use sacramentals all the time in their faith lives, even if they do not realize it — whether we say prayers, sing hymns, light candles, receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, wear religious medals or pray with the help of devotionals, such as the rosary, or devotional objects, such as prayer cards, crucifixes or pieces of religious art.