A normal day at Queen of Peace residence home is filled with people and human interactions. Meals, Mass and recreation are what bring nearly 80 senior citizens, staff and Little Sisters of the Poor together at the Queens Village assisted living facility.
It was a scene of hope and humanity as dozens of boxes of medical equipment from St. John’s University were packed up and driven over to New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital.
Joe Lewinger, Assistant Principal of Student Life at The Mary Louis Academy in Queens, died late in the evening of March 28 from complications of the coronavirus. He was 42 years old.
Father Jorge Ortiz-Garay, pastor of St. Brigid’s parish in Wyckoff Heights, Brooklyn, died of coronavirus this Friday.
Friday, March 27, 2020, at 1 p.m. EST, Pope Francis will offer prayers and an extraordinary “Urbi et Orbi” Blessing for the world’s Catholics. The Holy Father stated, “I invite everyone to participate spiritually through the means of communication.”
Father Michael Louis Gelfant, the pastor of Blessed Trinity Parish in Rockaway Point, streamed the hoisting of an Italian flag in honor of St. Joseph’s Day. He joked that, “It is the first time in the history of the parish, the Italian flag flies.”
While priests are unable to celebrate Mass publicly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they are finding creative ways to serve their Catholic communities.
At a time when our lives are looking more and more like a Google calendar packed with live streamed Masses, online classes and work from home, stresses — and separation anxiety — are at an all-time high.
For nearly half a century, the Brooklyn-based soup kitchen, Community Help in Park Slope, Inc. (CHiPS) has served more than 300 daily meals to clients in the neighborhood without charging a dime. But, on March 19, it too succumbed to the coronavirus crisis, serving its last plate until further notice.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio released a video on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, when the Church celebrates the Archangel Gabriel’s apparition to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she was to be the Mother of God.
