Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney made a pastoral visit to St. Paul Church in Prospect Park June 19, where he was the principal celebrant of Mass marking the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. After the Mass, the Bishop led a procession with the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of Prospect Park.

On June 12, young people of the Diocesan Shrine of St. John Paul II/Holy Rosary Church in Passaic received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney administered the Sacrament and also celebrated Mass marking the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity at the Polish-community parish.

It is a rather unsettling question: what fate awaits the souls of the saved — and the condemned — at the final judgment? Many Scripture passages paint a stark picture: from God sentencing unbelievers to be burned in a lake of fire for all eternity to Jesus separating the saved and unsaved like a shepherd separates his sheep. But perhaps Catholics might think about the Final Judgment like a giant lively party that lasts for eternity, Father Steven Shadwell, pastor of Our Lady of the Magnificat (OLM) Parish in Kinnelon, suggested in the third and final talk in his recent Chapel Chats series on June 16.

As the Diocese marks the Year of the Eucharist, the annual Hispanic Summer Institute was centered on the theme of the Eucharist, “the Source and Summit of the Christian life.” The institute was held from June 13 to 17 at the Pope John Paul II Center in Clifton in partnership with the diocesan Hispanic Ministry Office at the Evangelization Center at St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison and St. Elizabeth Univer­sity in Convent Station.

The long road to greater racial justice in our communities starts with a simple step: “Making friends with people, who don’t look like you — white, black, and brown — and then sharing God’s love with them.” That hopeful message came from an African-American man who experienced racism as a child in the South — retired Deacon Frank Owens of St. Lawrence the Martyr Parish in Chester who spoke at an interfaith prayer service in Chester three days before the June 20 observance of June­teenth, marking the end of slavery in the U.S. on June 19, 1865. It officially became the 11th federal holiday on June 17, 2021.

In my more than three decades of work in the Catholic press, never have I used the term “domestic terrorism” with “the Catholic Church” in the same sentence. But the recent outbreak of targeted vandalism against Catholic churches, the fire-bombings of crisis pregnancy centers, Masses being interrupted, the illegal protests outside the homes of Catholic Supreme Court Justices, coupled with an assassination plot against one of them by pro-abortion fanatics upset by the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade are just that — acts of domestic terrorism.

It will depend on your perspective, whether you would say that 2003 is “recent history” or “a long time ago,” but, in 2003 St. Pope John Paul II (at that time affectionately known as “JP 2” or “the Holy Father”) wrote one of his many Encyclical Letters, entitled Ecclesia De Eucharistia. As we participate in a Diocesan Year of the Eucharist, I have tried to look back at some of Church’s teaching and the writings of the saints on the topic of the Eucharist. It was a wonderful experience to read (again?) St. John Paul’s Ecclesia De Eucharistia. While I remember its publication in 2003, I can’t remember if I read the complete document at that time. During the past week, I had the opportunity to read the letter slowly and prayerfully.

Msgr. Kenneth Lasch, a retired priest of the Paterson Diocese, marked the 60th anniversary of his priesthood ordination in St. Joseph Church in Mendham with the celebration of Mass June 12.