CHARLOTTE — St. Gabriel Church is changing nighttime access to its Perpetual Adoration Chapel starting Saturday, March 7.
Beginning March 7, people who would like to come for Eucharistic Adoration overnight from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. will need to schedule Adoration time through the parish ministry and obtain an access code for the chapel door, as the outer church doors will remain locked at night.
Daytime access to the Adoration Chapel from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. will remain open without the need for advance scheduling or an access code.
While the parish implements this new security procedure, the Adoration Chapel will be closed overnight only from Monday, March 2, to Friday, March 6. The chapel will remain open as usual from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. this week.
More information is available online at www.stgabrielchurch.org. Questions? Contact the parish office at 704-364-5431.
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration is available at multiple locations around the Diocese of Charlotte, including the St. Joseph Chapel on the campus of Belmont Abbey College, located at 100 Belmont-Mt. Holly Road in Belmont; St. Aloysius Church’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Perpetual Adoration Chapel, located at 921 Second St. N.E. in Hickory; Pennybyrn at Maryfield Eucharistic Adoration Chapel in High Point; and St. Mark Church’s Monsignor Bellow Perpetual Adoration Chapel, located at 14740 Stumptown Road in Huntersville.
— Catholic News Herald
‘This will help the community in ways we can’t even imagine’
MONROE — Our Lady of Lourdes Church and Saint Joseph’s College of Maine have launched a unique partnership to help adult parishioners interested in pursuing college studies. Parishioners can apply to pursue an online degree from Saint Joseph’s College at a pace that fits each person’s needs – putting a college education within reach to those who may not otherwise be able to attend college.
Saint’s Joseph College of Maine is a Catholic liberal arts college founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1912. It offers more than 40 majors in undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs. The online degree program offered is as extensive as it is flexible, which makes it attractive to adults who may want a distance learning program with a high degree of flexibility because of family or employment obligations.
Father Benjamin Roberts, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, established the partnership program with Saint. Joseph’s College of Maine last September. He saw a need for his adult parishioners, many of them from his Hispanic community, who desired to attend college but faced obstacles with family obligations, their economic situation or immigration status.
“The agreement we have offers to all Our Lady of Lourdes parishioners, registered and attending, a 10 percent discount off tuition for all online programs for credit, associates through master’s degree,” Father Roberts explained.
“Additionally, the parish will reimburse at successful course completion another 10 percent. This discount is applicable regardless of immigration status,” he said.
Father Roberts sees this partnership with Saint Joseph’s College of Maine as a tangible means of helping his parishioners realize their dream of getting a college education.
“So many of my young parishioners are undocumented, which means at a state school they have to pay out-of-state tuition. This makes long-term education available to people whom this has not been available,” he said.
Dr. Carmina Chapp, program director of Online Theology Programs at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, is a longtime friend and Father Roberts’ former professor. She recently visited the parish to meet parishioners after Mass and provide more information about the online degree program.
“We have departments on campus (in Standish, Maine) that are dedicated to online students,” she said. “When you are an online student, you have a specific advisor assigned to you to help you select the correct courses and steer you in the right direction.”
“Saint Joseph’s College of Maine faculty are located all around the U.S. They are experts in their field,” Chapp noted. “Our bringing this higher education opportunity to the immigrant community here is really part of the Sisters of Mercy mission to bring education to immigrant communities, and women in particular.”
Father Roberts noted that he has observed many instances where female parishioners in particular who were so close to being able to go to college, but for various reasons it was not attainable.
“So that meant that there wasn’t further education for them. These would include graduates of early college who have associate’s degrees. It was just out of reach. This partnership doesn’t make it easy, but it does make it possible,” he said.
He shared an example of a young woman at his parish who hopes to pursue a graduate degree. “When she graduated from college (she) was the first one to graduate from middle school and high school in her family. We are going from a third- or fourth-grade or fifth-grade education, to potential graduate school in a single generation.
“This just shows you what an opportunity can do,” Chapp said. “And one of the other benefits of this for this population is that you can go part-time online. You can live at home, keep your job and go online when it is convenient. You can take one class at a time.
“You can really fit this into any schedule. Any kind of limitations you may have can be overcome,” Chapp stated.
Since the partnership and tuition assistance program were announced, more than 30 parishioners have expressed an interest in learning more about pursuing a college degree. Two parishioners are set to begin online classes this June.
Saint Joseph’s College of Maine is on a term system, with four terms a year: September, December, March and June. So students have four opportunities to take classes per year, depending on whatever their schedule and financial means allow.
Father Roberts received resounding support from his parish finance council when he suggested the idea of the partnership and the tuition assistance program for parishioners.
“We want to be generous, we want to be good stewards of what we have,” Father Roberts explained. “This is an investment. This will help the community in ways we can’t even imagine.”
He plans to hold future graduation ceremonies for his parishioners at the parish so that other parishioners and the graduates’ family and friends can easily attend.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
For more information
Saint Joseph’s College of Maine establishes partnerships with dioceses and parishes around the country. For more information about partnerships or degree offerings, go online to www.sjcme.edu. Questions? Contact Dr. Carmina Chapp at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 207-893-7997.
Note: The Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage is canceled for 2020.
BELMONT — All middle school and high school youth of the diocese are invited to attend the 16th annual Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage Saturday, April 4, at Belmont Abbey College for a day of fellowship, prayer and Eucharistic Adoration.
This annual youth event is a component of the annual Eucharistic Congress and shares the congress theme, which is “Be Holy” (1 Peter 1:16).
During the day-long event, which will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., diocesan youth will enjoy live music 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.
Johnny Philip, a Catholic speaker and musician based out of Fort Worth, Texas, will serve as emcee for the event. He will also deliver the keynote address to the youth.
Singer-songwriter and speaker Andrew Laubacher will provide music for the youth pilgrimage.
Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari will offer Mass for participants at 11:15 a.m. The Eucharistic Procession and Adoration with Bishop Peter Jugis will begin at 1:50 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 13.
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.
CHARLOTTE — Men of the Diocese of Charlotte are invited to attend the 10th annual Catholic Men’s Conference from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 7, at St. Matthew Church, located at 8015 Ballantyne Commons Pkwy.
This year’s theme is “What are you looking at?” (Quid Intuemini - Conference Crest).
The full day conference includes Mass, confession, Eucharistic Adoration, recitation of the rosary and a dynamic keynote address by Father Larry Richards, a priest of the Diocese of Erie, Pa., and a well-known author and EWTN radio talent.
The men’s conference other speakers include: Kevin Frederick, a former USMC pilot and current fed-eral security director for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration in North Carolina; and Dennis Gillan, a mental health advocate and speaker.
Dr. William Thierfelder, president of Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, will serve as master of ceremonies for the conference.
Father Patrick Winslow, vicar general and chancellor of the Diocese of Charlotte, will serve as the main celebrant at Mass.
The mission of the annual men’s conference is to focus on the sacraments and offer dynamic Catholic speakers who challenge each participant to grow in their Catholic faith, deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ and live up to the callings of a Catholic men, husbands and fathers.
Jason Murphy, one of the coordinators of the conference says, “We will be asking men, ‘What is in their life that is pulling them away from their duties as a Catholic Man? Is it work? Is it social media? Pornography? The phone or a need for connection? Themselves? What is keeping them from looking to Christ as St. John the Baptist did without all of the distractions and occasions of sin that the world, the flesh and the devil have laid in their path? We will be asking them to join us to get to the ‘Sacred Heart’ of the matter and put away ‘your old self’ and put on Christ and be the men, the fathers, and the husbands they have been called to be!’”
General admission cost is $35 per person in advance; $45 at the door. Knights of Columbus members and high school and college students’ cost is $30 per person. Clergy admission is free. Lunch is included with admission.
For more info
At www.catholicmenofthecarolinas.org: Find out more and register for the Catholic Men’s Conference
‘I thought we could use a strong father to restore order to all of this chaos’
CHARLOTTE — Parishioners across the Diocese of Charlotte are encouraged to make a consecration to St. Joseph during this special Year of St. Joseph.
One of the recommended resources for a consecration to St. Joseph is a new book: “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father,” written by Marian Father Donald Calloway. Father Calloway serves as vocation director of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception and currently resides in Steubenville, Ohio.
“This year marks the 150th anniversary of when Blessed Pope Pius IX declared St. Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church, so this year is very significant,” Father Calloway said. “I said to myself, ‘We have a real crisis today in families where the family has been redefined. We have these so-called ‘modern families’ and there is gender confusion.’ I thought we could use a strong father to restore order to all of this chaos. I thought, ‘It has got to be St. Joseph.’”
After researching, writing and translating works into English over the course of three years, Father Calloway comprised the book drawing on the wealth of the Church’s tradition.
“All children resemble their parents. As our spiritual parents, Our Lady and St. Joseph, we are called to resemble them in virtue. I am hoping that people will walk away from this consecration with a great knowledge of St. Joseph and how much he loves them and how much he wants to protect them during these crazy times,” Father Calloway said.
The book focuses on the virtues of St. Joseph: his patience, prudence, faith and purity for example.
The Consecration to St. Joseph emulates the Marian consecration made popular by St. Louis de Montfort, highlighting many of St. Joseph’s titles, privileges and heroic virtues.
The program of preparation and consecration takes 33 days. Participants spend about 20-30 minutes a day on a short exposition on one of the invocations in the powerful Litany of St. Joseph, followed by a reading about St. Joseph, and concluding with the recitation of the Litany of St. Joseph.
The consecration to St. Joseph can be done anytime, but particular feast days such as March 19 or May 1 are special opportunities to focus this devotional effort.
On the day of consecration, use whichever act of consecration you prefer or compose your own act of consecration to St. Joseph. Find suggestions online at www.yearofstjoseph.org.
Some parishes are organizing special Masses or opportunities to participate in the consecration as a group. Check with your parish office for details.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter; www.consecrationtostjoseph.org contributed.
More info
At www.consecrationtostjoseph.org: Learn more about what it means to consecrate yourself to St. Joseph, and order the book “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father”
St. Joseph Prayer Books available
CHARLOTTE — To commemorate the diocese’s Year of St. Joseph, “The St. Joseph Prayer Book” has been compiled to assist the faithful in their prayers to St. Joseph, the Protector of the Church.
Produced by St. Benedict Press, “The St. Joseph Prayer Book” contains all the famous prayers: the Novena for a Special Favor, the Litany of St. Joseph, 30 Days’ Prayer to St. Joseph, the Memorare, as well as prayers for purity, conversion, a happy death, and more. In total, the book contains more than 50 prayers, litanies and novenas. A Spanish version is also available.
Included in this commemorative edition is a letter from Bishop Peter Jugis about his declaration of 2020 as the Year of St. Joseph, as well as passport-type pages in the back of the book for pilgrims to have stamped as they visit each St. Joseph parish in our diocese throughout the year.
Take advantage of this special, limited-time offer to gift this treasury of prayers and bring souls closer to Jesus through St. Joseph. Orders are being accepted online at www.saintbenedictpress.com. Search for “The St. Joseph Prayer Book.” Cost is $12.95. Some parishes have also purchased copies, so check with your parish to see if books are available for purchase in the parish office.
— Catholic News Herald; St. Benedict Press contributed.
More online
At www.yearofstjoseph.org: Find educational resources, prayers and devotions, and “Year of St. Joseph” event details from across the diocese, as dates for special events are finalized.