St. Matthew faith formation initiative
CHARLOTTE — Nearly 3,000 children in St. Matthew Church faith formation programs recently participated in “Love Your Neighbor,” an outreach initiative in partnership with Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte.
Young people in preschool through the eighth grade donated thousands of items to fill “blessing bags” and “blessing buckets” to aid people in need in Charlotte and those affected by a recent tornado in Greensboro.
Pictured: Children in St. Matthew Church’s faith formation program assembled 300 “blessing bags” and 90 “blessing buckets” to distribute to people in need, praying as they filled each one with cleaning supplies and personal care supplies. (Photos provided by Kelly Matsey)
Each of the 300 blessing bags was filled with a toothbrush, toothpaste, bar of soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, deodorant and a washcloth. Ninety blessing buckets containing laundry detergent, household spray cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, sponges, paper towels and dish soap were also assembled.
“The items were collected as part of our Lenten prayer time,” explained Diane Kiradjieff, the parish’s religious education director. “The children were all asked to bring in the various items (which) we assigned by grade to ensure we had enough of each item.”
When it was time to put the blessing bags and buckets together, the preschool children rolled the washcloths and made “Thumbody Loves You” fingerprint cards. The other classes, divided into grades K-3, 4-6 and 7-8, then rotated through the gym to assemble the blessing bags and buckets.
After a brief introduction from Catholic Charities staff on who they are and who they serve, there was a prayer “service” time. Each class made a prayer circle, and within the circle were enough items to build two to three blessing bags or a blessing bucket. A modern-day parable based upon the Good Samaritan was read, describing a family displaced from their home by violence or a natural disaster. The passersby in the parable were different towns who either ignored or made the family feel unwanted, until in a third town the family was recognized as God’s children and received help from the community.
Following the parable, different scripture verses were read alluding to the items that would fill the bags and buckets. The children decided which item was needed and began filling the bags and buckets. Before they finished, the children placed their hands on the bags and buckets and prayed for the families that would be receiving them.
In total, 2,969 young people collected more than 6,000 items to fill the blessing bags and blessing buckets.
“In a faith formation program, it is too easy to get so focused on the learning that we sometimes forget about the doing,” Kiradjieff said. “One of the biggest challenges for catechists is to make sure what we are teaching is relevant to the students’ life – that they are able to take their Catholic faith into their daily life and live it to the fullest.”
She explained that the three goals with the project were: to do as Jesus asked in loving one’s neighbor and helping people in need, remembering that one’s “neighbor” is all of God’s children and not just those within a particular community; to help the children understand that they can make a difference, and it is their responsibility as Catholics to do so; and to spread peace and love through their actions, especially in bringing together the individual classes as one faith formation community.
“Our faith formation team is intentional about making the connection between faith and works of mercy for our students and their families,” noted Father Pat Hoare, pastor of St. Matthew Church. “Our faith is a living faith. The Lord is not only someone to “learn about.” He sends the Holy Spirit, allowing us to make the love of God present in the world.”
“I encourage the children to not only bring in toiletries or make sandwiches, but to remember in prayer the people they are serving, because God loves each of them very much,” he said.
“This service project at St. Matthew Church was a tremendous success in connecting the faith formation of our young people with the charitable works of mercy,” said Dr. Gerard Carter, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte.
“Many of the items collected by the children were able to be transported to Greensboro to help those impacted by the recent tornadoes. This reinforces that we are one community of the faithful helping out those in need across many miles.”
“It is our hope that similar opportunities will be taken up by parishes across the diocese,” he added.
Kiradjieff said the Catholic Charities project “gave us the chance to be His hands and His feet, and truly be able to live out what we learn in our faith formation classrooms and from the Church.”
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
GREENSBORO — St. Pius X Church welcomed the spirit and relics of St. Pio of Pietrelcina the weekend of April 14.
“It was a beautiful weekend,” said Lindsay Kohl, the parish’s director of formational studies. Kohl, along with parishioners Rita and Mario Pugliese, planned and coordinated Padre Fortunato Grottola’s visit to the Greensboro parish.
Pictured: Parishioners at St. Pius X Church in Greensboro were blessed by a relic of St. Pio of Pietrelcina during a recent visit from Capuchin Friar Fortunato Grottola, now the superior guardian in Pietrelcina, where the saint once lived. (Photos by Georgianna Penn | Catholic News Herald)
A Capuchin friar, Padre Fortunato helps to oversee the Shrine of St. Padre Pio in southern Italy and has most recently been assigned the superior guardian in Pietrelcina, where St. Pio once lived.
With four weekend Masses, an Italian dinner celebration, time with the youth and a seniors luncheon, the people of the parish felt truly blessed by Padre Fortunato’s visit.
The friar also visited the sick who reside at Maryfield in High Point, which was very important to him.
“He visited one of our very sick parishioners between Masses,” Kohl added.
St. Pio of Pietrelcina, known simply as Padre Pio, is dearly loved by many, especially in Italy.
During his time in Greensboro, Padre Fortunato shared many stories of the great saint, stigmatist and mystic who died in 1968. As a child, Fortunato even met Padre Pio, when a school trip afforded him the opportunity to shake Padre Pio’s hand which bore the wounds of Christ.
Padre Fortunato brought several relics with him which were used during the blessings after each Mass: Padre Pio’s habit from 1918, the one he wore shortly after having received the stigmata. A wool scarf he used to cover his head and shoulders, as he is so often pictured. A wool glove which he used to cover his hand so the stigmata would not always be visible to people. Blood that flowed from his wounded side, wrapped by a linen he used for this purpose.
Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor, and Rita and Mario Pugliese and their daughter Sara are pictured with a scarf that once belonged to St. Pio. Sara said she felt drawn to the scarf all weekend, and Padre Fortunato even gave it to her to sleep with one night when she was feeling scared.Frances Giaimo and her husband Sal were among three families who hosted an Italian celebration at the parish to welcome Padre Fortunato. Sharing recipes and expertise, the Giaimos, Errichiellos and Puglieses created a “labor of love” Italian feast for the parish and their Italian guest.
St. Pio is a saint of many gifts: family, vocations, hope and healing, parishioners described.
“What’s amazing is that there are so many parishioners here at St. Pius X who have had personal encounters with St. Pio and his many blessings,” noted St. Pius X staff member Carolyn Painley.
During an interview at the seniors’ luncheon, parishioner Janet Corrigan shared her son’s story of hope and answered prayers. Sean and Elaine Corrigan traveled to Medjugorje many years ago for the purpose of praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary to have a child. They had tried for years, but had been unable to conceive. While there, they met pro-life speaker Molly Kelly. When the Corrigans shared their reason for traveling to Medjugorje, Kelly enthusiastically told them that a priest accompanying her carried a glove of Padre Pio’s. The Corrigans arranged for a blessing, and the priest placed the glove over Elaine Corrigan’s womb and prayed. The Corrigans now have four children.
“Pray big,” Pattie Murray told her sister Joan Hennessey, who was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in 2005. Murray, a Secular Franciscan and St. Pius X parishioner, said everyone in her family prayed to St. Pio for her sister to be healed, even taking her to the National Centre for Padre Pio in Barto, Pa., and to the St. Padre Pio Shrine in Landisville, N.J. After extensive surgeries and clinical trials, her sister’s cancer was declared in remission a year later.
“She had prayed to St. Pio – he was it,” Murray said.
Unfortunately, she continued, her sister’s cancer came back.
“Her prayer at that point was that she could see both of her daughters graduate from high school,” Murray said.
Her sister’s prayer was answered, living long enough to see them both graduate before passing away on the sixth anniversary of St. Pio’s canonization, on June 16, 2008. “That’s something many people may not see as significant, but I do,” Murray said.
“It was 1968, in Catholic grade school in Miami,” Dr. Juan Fernandez shared in an interview after the Italian feast celebration. “A group of people was going around the country talking about Padre Pio. They were trying to get signatures for his beatification and they showed a lot of pictures and talked about the miracles and the stigmata,” he said.
Young Fernandez, an eighth-grader at the school, became really impressed with Padre Pio, who had died earlier that year, and he signed the petition. “It’s hard to believe – I get choked up 50 years later – that I was able to get his blessing from the gloves that he wore,” he said.
After learning about Padre Pio, Fernandez felt called to discern the priesthood and spent time at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Miami.
“My high school would allow me to go and spend time there to see if I really had the vocation,” he recalled. “But God showed me a different path, to become a physician.”
Now an obstetrician and gynecologist, Fernandez has delivered approximately 10,000 babies over his 35-year medical career. After he retires in August, he and his wife will be going on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) pilgrimage, he said.
After Padre Fortunato’s visit, Fernandez said he feels he is being called once again. “I don’t know what it is, but He knows my mind, my heart and my soul are open to whatever it is He wants me to do next.”
Dr. Juan Fernandez brought a statue of St. Pio to be blessed by Padre Fortunato. His devotion to the saint led him to his vocation of becoming a physician, and he has delivered almost 10,000 babies over his medical career.From vocations, to family to hope and healing, St. Pio shares a wide range of gifts with God’s people.
“Every time I talked to Padre Fortunato, I was overcome with emotion,” Kohl said. “Saints are funny. They find a way to help people.”
Rita and Mario Pugliese hosted Padre Fortunato during his visit to Greensboro.
“I feel very full,” said Rita Pugliese. “He left a peace in my house. Each time he entered my home, he would say, ‘Pace a questa casa,’” she said.
The Puglieses have a personal connection to St. Pio. Originally from Monte di Procida, a small town near Naples, Italy, Mario Pugliese’s mother met St. Pio more than 50 years ago when she was having trouble getting pregnant. She wrote him a letter and he wrote back, inviting her to a special Mass. She went to the Mass and even though it was extremely crowded, she got close enough to him to receive his blessing. He pointed to her and said, “You will have kids.” She soon had her first child, then Mario, and later a third child.
Rita Pugliese said Padre Fortunato feels part of the St. Pius X family now. He could really feel the faith and love of the parishioners and see it in their eyes, she said.
“Padre Pio in a singular way manifested so many spiritual gifts. It was a great privilege to welcome Father Fortunato to St. Pius and have him bring the spiritual legacy of this great saint to life for us,” said Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor. “Padre Pio was a powerful intercessor in life, and we know this to be even more true since he has joined the company of saints. Many people at St. Pius felt that intercession in a very poignant and personal way.”
— Georgianna Penn, correspondent