Question of the Week: Do you feel like Job sometimes? Can you still have faith in God even if you don’t understand why God allows people to suffer?

Dear Parishioners of OLM & OLS:

Today is Archbishop’s Annual Appeal Sunday. In the name of Archbishop Myers, I ask your support of this annual opportunity for you to extend your Stewardship of Treasure to those who depend upon our Local Church of Newark for assistance. The charitable works of our Archdiocese are many and complex. They range from the support and training of our seminarians to the support and training of our unemployed and underemployed.

As we face an election year, we are exposed to an overwhelming corpus of political rhetoric from every corner of the political spectrum. A synthesis of all this political verbiage is that services previously provided by the public sector continue to be curtailed. This is done in the name of saving citizens tax dollars. The basic reality is that you cannot curtail the level of taxation without an equal and corresponding curtailment of services provided by the public sector. The abbreviation or elimination of public sector services almost always translates to the abbreviation or elimination of assistance to those who can least afford to loose the services: the poor.

As the poor lose government provided services, they look to alternative means of achieving ‘their daily bread.’ The primary venue of services for our disenfranchised brothers and sisters is the Church.

It is for these “least of our brothers and sisters” that Archbishop Myers turns to you. Only with your support of the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, can the Archbishop and it turn this local Church, which is the Archdiocese of Newark, provide the programing required for this assistance.

Your Stewardship of Treasure, either in a single one time donation or in the periodic system spread over the next ten months, will be translated into direct hands-on assistance to those whose only hope in these economic times is the Roman Catholic Church.

You may say: “My ability to assist is so small that it will not make a difference.” My response to that is: “Honestly challenge yourself! Are you using that as an excuse to do nothing?” When all of us contribute according to your means! Much can be accomplished. I thank you in advance for your generosity.

My love and my prayers,


Father Jack

Beginning this January OLM and OLS have initiated a new process of Adult Faith Formation to assist parents in presenting their children for Baptism. At OLM please contact Father Jack at 201|434|7500 x15 or at olmjcnj@aol.com to set an appointment to register for the Baptismal Faith Formation Process. At OLS please contact Sister Elise at 201 433 0626 or ols9395@comcast.net.