Like many of the more than 400 Catholics, who traveled to St. Cecilia Church in Rockaway on the evening of March 7, Amy Welsch, a faith-filled married mother of six, came with a mission: to find a saint to become her new spiritual companion. A parishioner of St. Cecilia’s, she was looking for some help through a tough time — her 17-year-old daughter, Alexis, recently had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

’Twas a grand day for Notre Dame of Mount Carmel Parish as parishioners marched through the streets of Morristown on March 9 in the 40th annual Morris County St. Patrick’s Day Parade, in which their pastor, Father Paddy O’Donovan, was honored as the parade’s grand marshal.

Bishop Serratelli celebrated Mass in the chapel of St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Paterson on Ash Wednesday morning, March 6, where he distributed ashes to employees of the hospital to begin the holy season of Lent. Following Mass, he visited patients at the hospital in their rooms and distributed ashes to them, blessed them and prayed with them.

Parishioners of St. Mark the Evangelist in Long Valley welcomed Bishop Serratelli, who made a pastoral visit to the parish March 9. There, he celebrated the vigil Mass for the First Sunday of Lent. During the Mass he also administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to the young people of the parish, who had been preparing for the last two years to be confirmed.

To better serve the pastoral and the spiritual needs of laity, it is important today that pastors, priests and lay leaders are equipped with also managing the parish on an administrative and organizational level. To facilitate this, the Paterson Diocese has entered into a unique partnership with the Villanova School of Business (VSB) Center for Church Management (CCM) to offer an innovative two-year, online Master of Science in Church Management degree designed to provide students with a high-level skill set in effective church management. In addition, a 50 percent scholarship is available to any new students from the Paterson Diocese.

They come from different vocations — priests, religious sisters and laity — and have taken on different roles at St. Anthony Parish in Hawthorne — including lector, Catholic school principal and Bible-study participant. They use different approaches to make their points, drawing on personal experience, quoting Scripture or outlining with bullet points. Yet these people of faith, past and present members of St. Anthony’s, came together between the covers of the parish’s new booklet, “Repent & Believe in the Gospel,” offering short, individual spiritual reflections.

On March 10, the First Sunday of Lent, in dioceses around the world, the Rite of Election took place as catechumens journeyed closer to receiving the Sacraments of Initiation — Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation — at the Easter Vigil celebration on Holy Saturday evening, April 20. The 114 catechumens, who will be welcomed into the Church on Holy Saturday, came to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson on Sunday where Bishop Serratelli formerly selected — or elected — them.

On March 1, U.S. Sec­re­tary of Educa­tion Betsy DeVos, along with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), unveiled Education Freedom Schol­arships (EFS), the Trump Administration’s key proposal to expand and improve the education options available to students across the country.