EAST FLATBUSH — In preparation for the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Patroness of Haiti, St. Jerome Church in East Flatbush hosted a three day prayer service for the embattled Caribbean nation plagued by gang violence.
The triduum prayer for Haiti took place June 24-26, and was led by Father Frantzy Petit-Homme, who is Haitian and has led similar prayers across the country. Father Petit-Homme lives in Haiti and had a church in the heart of Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, which he had to abandon because of the unrest in the city.
Michele Guerrier, a retired probation officer and parishioner at St. Jerome, who is also active in the diocese’s Haitian Apostolate and the Vicariate Office of Black Catholic Concerns, said while there is no imminent solution for the situation in Haiti, the prayer services are a way to enlighten people to the dire situation that exists.
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Bishop Brennan will celebrate a 7 p.m. Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at 526 59th St. in Sunset Park on June 28 to honor the Blessed Mother on her feast day.
“It is an annual Mass, but now it has become a cry for help,” Guerrier said.
“A cry for help and hope from and for the Haitian people. We are the Diocese of Immigrants. We are a family in this diocese,” she added. “Due to what is happening in Haiti now, the only thing we can do to help is to pray. It has to be divine intervention for a resolution at this point. Humanly we can’t do anything.”
Rose Desroches, who attended the triduum prayer, said it was “a cry of despair for the people and a cry for help for the people of Haiti.” “We are here to cry tonight to say that enough is enough and that we are tired of it,” she said.
The iconic Byzantine image of the Virgin Mary that Haitians revere is one that is familiar to worshippers in Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was created in the Byzantine-style and can be traced back as far as 1499, with the original icon permanently enshrined in Rome, Guerrier explained.
Father Hilaire Belizaire, pastor of St. Jerome, explained to parishioners the significance of the triduum, and of praying to the Blessed Mother in difficult times.
“We prayed to the Holy Mother during the times of strife when epidemics like leprosy struck Haiti. When doctors couldn’t do anything, the Blessed Mother could,” Father Belizaire said. “Now we are facing a new form of leprosy and the country is devastated with famines, so we as Haitians are gathered together, reaching out to the Blessed Mother and asking for her intercession again like she has done for us before.
“We believe that there is nothing that this Mother will not do for us.”
Many Haitians keep an image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in their homes, and pray for her intercession. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI entrusted the people of Haiti to her care and invoked her protection upon them.
Father Petit-Homme said he began the triduum prayer for Haiti “to bring awareness to the plight of Haitians in Haiti and to encourage everyone to come together in prayer to bring some resolution to the situation.”
“For the past four years Haiti has been living a pandemic of greater significance than the smallpox epidemic,” Father Petit-Homme said.
“The violent gangs have destroyed hospitals, churches and schools. All institutions have been destroyed including my church. One million people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince,” Father Petit-Homme said. “We pray that the same miracle the Holy Mother did for us in 1882 she will do for us again today.”
