BELMONT — Youth from across the Diocese of Charlotte are invited to attend the 14th annual Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage Saturday, April 7, at Belmont Abbey College. Each year, Bishop Peter Jugis encourages middle and high school youth to join him at the abbey for a day of prayer and adoration of our Eucharistic Lord.
This annual youth event is a component of the annual Eucharistic Congress and shares the congress theme, which is based on the words of the Gospel of John 6:51: “I am the living bread.”
During the day-long event, which will run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., diocesan youth will enjoy live music, a vocations fair and motivational speakers, as well as Eucharistic Adoration and a Eucharistic Procession on the historic Belmont Abbey College campus.
There will be separate program tracks for middle and high school youths, and the sacrament of confession will also be available from priests of the diocese.
Dom Quaglia Jr., a Catholic speaker and author, will serve as emcee for the event. Mathias Michael, worship leader and singer-songwriter, will provide the music for the pilgrimage.
Singer-songwriter and recording artist Dana Catherine will serve as speaker for the high school girls. Father David Miller, pastor of St. Dorothy Church in Lincolnton, will serve as speaker for the high school boys.
Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari will offer Mass for participants at 9:45 a.m. The Eucharistic Procession and Adoration with Bishop Jugis will begin at 1:45 p.m.
Registration for the youth pilgrimage is $15. The fee includes a pizza lunch, a soft drink and a specially-designed pilgrimage T-shirt if you register by Friday, March 9.
For details, go online to www.goeucharist.com.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
Did you know?
The Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage is significantly funded by contributions to the annual Diocesan Support Appeal. Learn more about the DSA and donate online at www.charlottediocese.org/dsa.
Seven parishes and three Catholic non-profit ministries have received $1,000 CRS Rice Bowl Mini-Grants from Catholic Charities to assist those in need.
Three of those grants are helping fund community gardens at St. Benedict the Moor Church in Winston-Salem, St. Eugene Church in Asheville, and Sacred Heart Church in Salisbury.
These grant funds come from the portion of the Lenten CRS Rice Bowl Collection that remains in the Diocese of Charlotte to address poverty and hunger alleviation projects at the local level.
“Thanks to a CRS Rice Bowl Grant, we at St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church will expand our community garden by more than 50 percent,” said project coordinator Lorraine Mortis. “This expansion will provide members of our parish with even more opportunities to serve the needs of those in our immediate neighborhood, which includes the clients of the Winston-Salem Office of Catholic Charities.”
Pictured: The Friendship Garden/Jardín de la Amistad! Development Team of St. Eugene Church includes (back row, from left) James Blocker, Connie Mitchell, Glenn Glass, Maddie Crow and Sam Packard; (middle row) Cynthia Gibbs, JoAnne Gance, Emmily Zavala, Mikayla Zopfi, Vicki Ransom, Andrea Genna, Veronica Allen and Bill Maloney; and (front row) Citlalli Zavala, Gerrie Zimmer and Nancy Acopine. (Photos provided by Cynthia Gibbs)
Mortis entrusts the success of the parish’s project to divine assistance, offering the following scriptural passage as inspiration for the project: “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes it grow.” (1 Cor 3:7)
Sacred Heart Church is using its Rice Bowl Grant, the second for the parish, to add a Pollinator Garden adjacent to its Lord’s Bounty Community Garden.
“We are actively trying to improve the amount of our harvest that we can provide to our parish and community in need,” said Gretchen McKivergan. “The start of the pollinator garden will attract beneficial butterflies and insects that will help to pollinate the garden to improve that harvest.”
The pollinator garden will help with butterfly conservation as well as benefit different agencies in Rowan County and the parish’s own food pantry, McKivergan added.
The CRS Rice Bowl Mini-Grant awarded to the Friendship Garden/Jardín de la Amistad! of St. Eugene Church will provide healthy, supplemental food to those in need in the Asheville area this year.
“The project has transformed an abandoned lot (where once the former rectory and offices existed) into a source of food for the poor of our parish and a source of beauty and pride for all St. Eugene parishioners,” said Cynthia Gibbs, project team member and co-chair. “The community garden gives St. Eugene Anglos and Hispanics the opportunity to work side by side and get to know, help and understand each other better.
“We hope that our Garden/Jardín will provide a peaceful respite for those who need it – a place to pray, meditate and reflect on God’s blessings…a place to feel valued,” Gibbs said. “We are one family and we hope this Jardín/Garden will reflect that.”
Friendship Garden Volunteers Sam Packard, Veronica Allen and Maddie Crow fill up the raised garden beds with soil.With the CRS mini-grant, funds have enabled a watering system and various materials and soil for the raised garden beds. Project tasks, which began in October with volunteer recruitment, include: clearing the land, tilling the soil, building raised bed boxes, transplanting plants and sowing vegetable and flower seeds, and building arbors, picnic tables and a walking path. Even those without green thumbs assist by providing snacks, creating signs and saying prayers. The parish project also includes gardeners from nearby Asheville Catholic School and UNC-Asheville’s Campus Ministry.
Soon, early spring crops will be planted. This spring, the parish’s Knights of Columbus council will build an 8-foot-by-12-foot garden storage unit purchased by an anonymous donor. In her email updates on the project, Gibbs noted, “I am so excited and wanted to share the good news with you all. We are so blessed.”
— Joseph Purello, Special to the Catholic News Herald
Joseph Purello is director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte’s Office of Social Concerns and Advocacy and the diocesan director for CRS.