Chatting among friends and fellow parishioners, Luciana D’Cruze beams with light and energy.
After several years of feeling “an emptiness, like something was missing” from her life, the 38-year-old Bangladeshi native says she’s more at peace than ever before because she can finally see what God has in store for her.
A parishioner at St. Gerard Majella Church in Hollis, D’Cruze is becoming a full-time associate of the Religious Teachers Filippini and moving into the order’s Morristown, N.J., motherhouse on May 31.
The path has not always been clear for D’Cruze, who immigrated to Queens as a teenager and pursued careers in opticianry and accounting, but never felt fulfilled.
That changed when she joined St. Gerard Majella parish in 2010, became involved in youth ministry and attended World Youth Day.
“I really started feeling this calling after World Youth Day 2013 in Brazil,” D’Cruze said.
At the advice of Father Josephjude Gannon, her pastor and “spiritual father,” she began making retreats and found rewarding work as an activity leader at Ozanam Hall Nursing Home, Bayside.
She also started daily prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
“I was asking Jesus, ‘Are you calling me? Do I really have a vocation?’”
In the fall of 2013, she met Sister Shirlee Tremont, M.P.F., vocation director for the Filippini Sisters, at a Holy Hour in a neighboring parish. Sister Shirlee invited her on retreat to the motherhouse and D’Cruze knew she was home.
“I felt so much joy, comfort and happiness. I heard a voice inside of me say, ‘This is it. You are in the right place,’” she said.
The community of St. Gerard Majella offered their prayers and well wishes to D’Cruze, along with her parents and siblings, at a recent parish festival, which included a barbecue, music, rides and volleyball with the Filippini Sisters on the parish grounds.
“This is the first young lady in my time who has said ‘yes’ to going into a religious order,” said Father Gannon, pastor since 2008.
Committed to Faith, Joy
“It’s a small parish, but it’s a parish committed to the faith, committed to joy,” he said. “It’s young families trying to do what’s right for their kids, trying to bring Jesus into the community.”
The celebration was also Father Gannon’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to his people for their response to Generations of Faith, a diocesan fundraising initiative to meet the material needs of the Church in Brooklyn and Queens.
“We were a pilot parish that went 265 percent over goal,” he said. “Our goal was $230,000. We have $620,000 pledged and about $75,000 already paid off. Today, I got another donation of $300. The numbers keep going up.”
Working with a committee of parish volunteers, he reached out to churchgoers about the campaign at the start of the year. More than 170 families made a pledge – double the number that normally contributes to the Annual Catholic Appeal.
“We are not a rich parish. We get $2,000 to $3,000 maybe in the collection on the weekend, but people give in other ways,” he said, explaining that they serve as volunteers, catechists and role models.
St. Gerard Majella parishioners are an intergenerational mix of Caribbean, Latin American and Indian immigrants and their American-born children, as well as some older families of German and Irish descent.
In recent years, they have financed a handicap ramp for the parish and sponsored parish youth who attended the last two World Youth Days.
“I know they love the Church and I know what they can afford. They always go over and above,” Father Gannon said.
“We’ve had struggles. Six years ago, we were $300,000 in debt as a parish. Now we have enough to be able to do fun, joyful things like this (festival).”
A major incentive for people to give to the campaign, besides helping the senior priests and youth of the diocese, the pastor said, was knowing that a percentage of the funds raised over goal will be returned to the parish.
The plan for those monies at St. Gerard Majella is to transform a parking lot into green space with a walking path, a Marian shrine and a place for local youth to hang out and play ball.
“We don’t have places where families can go to encounter Jesus and encounter the neighborhood safely so this will be a safe place, a fun place,” Father Gannon said.
And perhaps even a place that enables more people to hear God in their lives.
“It takes courage to say ‘yes’ to God’s call,” said parishioner Jilenny Duran, 15, who is discerning a vocation to consecrated life. “You have to have an open mind and an open heart to hear God.”