Our school community was honored to welcome Sister Judith Dupuy, Director of the Diocese of Worcester Haitian Apostolate, and students from Haiti to our school on Thursday. After a photo with Trax and lunch (hamburger, chips and fruit!) with our students, our special guests visited our classrooms, learned about our curriculum, our traditions and our commitment to our faith, thanks to Sister Judith's detailed translations.

Despite the frigid weather this past Saturday, sounds of clicking needles and warm conversation amongst the Prayer Shawl Ministry filled Mary’s room in the Pastoral Center. The purpose of this ministry is to offer a symbol of God's love for those who are ill or others who are in need of comfort and prayer through the gift of a prayer shawl. From the first moment a new shawl is started, the knitter begins praying for the recipient. Once completed, they are blessed and placed in a bag with a beautiful tag and prayers of comfort. Recipients are then wrapped in the prayer shawls that are created with love and intended to give its wearer a big hug from God through their hands.

The reconstruction of the Bokolo Chapel is well underway.  This chapel is one of the 11 chapel communities served by Fr. Serge and St. Michel's parish in Roche-a-Bateau, Haiti. The chapel had been completely destroyed in Hurricane Matthew in October of 2016.

Members of our 5:30 Mass Contemporary Ensemble reunite each year for Christmas Eve. Check out the photos and a short video of their rehearsal last week!

It seems that the season of Advent has just begun and already it is almost over. Especially with Christmas being on Monday making the Fourth week of Advent the shortest time it can be. Even though the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve fall on the same day, they are two separate liturgical days and are also separate days of obligation. Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent will follow the normal Sunday Mass schedule except there will be no 5:30 pm Mass. Listed here are Mass Times for this weekend.

On Saturday, December 16th, St. Mary's held its first Simbang Gabi Mass.  The Simbang Gabi tradition was introduced to the Philippines by the Spanish friars to allow the farmers to hear Mass before going to the fields early in the morning. More...

The Diocese of Worcester recently launched a new Communications Ministry for parishes that includes partnering with eCatholic to provide beautiful, mobile-friendly websites that are also integrated with Flocknote. We are excited to share that we just completed our conversion to the eCatholic platform we hope you like it!

Make Plans to Join Us for Christmas The Christmas Mass schedule will remain as it has been for the past several years with the additional 4:30 pm Vigil Mass at St. John’s High School where there are more handicapped parking spaces and easy accessibility.

LIGHT OF THE WORLD RETREAT Parishioners who attended our first Light of the World Retreat weekend were truly renewed in their faith and are now taking part in four post retreat sessions. We are grateful to Clare Ossman, Karen Coleman, Alfonso Martinez who came from the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois to lead our retreat along with Dennis Featherstone from St. Mary’s in Uxbridge. Talk to parishioners who participated and they will share their experience with you and encourage you to attend the next retreat in the Spring of 2018.

Our annual Senior Luncheon is a long standing St Mary School tradition and a meaningful way for our school to thank the Seniors within our community for all they do to support our school. With our students serving as greeters, servers and entertainers, it was a lovely day to celebrate friendship and share gratitude for our St Mary community. Special thanks to Mary Beth Kolosi Connors and our parent volunteers for hosting this special event!

On Monday, our Pilgrims (First Graders) welcomed our Natives (Kindergartners) for our annual Thanksgiving Feast. The morning was filled with prayer, welcoming songs, kind words of thanks and favorite foods shared with friends!

Cardinal Chibly Langlois, the bishop of Les Cayes, Haiti, the first Haitian cardinal in the Catholic Church and Bishop of Les Cayes visited the Diocese of Worcester the weekend of September 2-3, to renew the twinning relationship between parishes in the Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Les Cayes, Haiti. Accompanied by Bishop McManus, Cardinal Chibly visited St. Mary's and concelebrated the 4:30 Mass with Bishop McManus.

In addition to being Pastor of St. Michel’s in Roche-a-Bateau, Fr. Serge is also responsible for 11 surrounding chapels, the majority of which are in hillside communities accessible only by foot or via donkey.  We were excited to visit Boklo, a mission chapel that had suffered greatly from hurricane damage.

School visits were some of the most joyous and energetic experiences of our trip. In the classrooms we were greeted by smiling students who, despite sometimes living in squalor-like conditions, were impeccably dressed. As we entered the classrooms, students rose in unison to welcome us with a song. he privilege of attending school in Haiti is uncertain. The average Haitian has fewer than five years of education and only 61% of the population is literate.  Many students rise at 5AM and walk miles to classes, which sometimes start as early as 7AM to beat the midday heat.

The generosity of St. Mary’s parishioners allowed us to fund the repairs to St. Michel Church and rebuild the adjacent food canteen, both casualties of hurricane Matthew. We funded the church repair in three phases. At the time of our arrival, phase two –building up the walls and roof supports– was fully underway.Our group was to act as assistants on the smaller, more manageable canteen project.

Below are pictures sent to St. Mary's from Fr. Serge showing the progress that has been made in repairing the roof of the church.

We arrived in Roche-a-Bateau on Sunday, May 28th. As we pulled into town we were immediately struck by the damage inflicted by hurricane Matthew. It’s one thing to learn of the damage but another to witness it first hand. Many houses along the coastal road were gone and replaced with tin shacks or tarps spread over wood frames. St. Michel Church no longer had a roof and the parish center and connected canteen, which St. Mary’s helped to construct, were completely ruined.

Very early this morning eight members of our parish - Charlie Eisenmann, Lane Eisenmann, Tom Josie, Lynne Perreault, Sheila Seed, Patrick Seed, Martha Serafin, Barbara Trudel & Fr. Mike departed for a long-awaited trip Haiti.  

Members of our Hatiain Ministry spoke at all Masses this weekend to share an update on our sister parish in Roche a Bateau following the devastating hurricane.