Comforting messages shared between parish, school communities
By Lois Rogers | Features Editor
A lot of the news following the tragic shooting in Newtown, Ct., focused on St. Rose of Lima Parish, there.
The coverage was only natural as St. Rose Church would emerge as a haven of prayer and comfort for the residents of the stricken area and the location of the funerals of eight of the 26 children and educators who perished in the hail of bullets.
In St. Rose Parish, Belmar, badly battered by Superstorm Sandy, coverage of this parish which also bears the name of its patron saint, generated the kind of sorrow that comes with personal connection.
Only three weeks earlier, the Belmar Parish had received a $5,000 donation from the Knights of Columbus of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Connecticut. Mindful of the similar name and saintly patron, it was sent to help the Catholic community of Belmar in the ongoing effort to recover from Sandy.
The donation was placed in the parish hurricane relief fund by Msgr. Edward Arnister, the pastor, to assist needy parishioners who have been displaced.
As the news of the Newtown shooting rippled across the Belmar campus, the need to respond with consolation and prayer to those who had helped them became palpable. In no time, a real effort was underway to let the parishioners of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Connecticut know how much their suffering was felt by St. Rose parishioners and students in Belmar.
William Roberts, principal of St. Rose School, recalls that when Msgr. Arnister, came to him and told him about how the Connecticut parish had reached out to help, he felt an immediate sense of connection.
That sense of connection inspired Roberts. “For us, it was twofold,” Roberts said. “This community had done something for us and it was our turn to show them we were thinking of them.”
The result was nearly 300 cards hand made by the students out of construction paper and their own designs. “They were prayer cards, thinking of you cards. It was a very good way for our students to show that they care about the (families) in Connecticut and are contributing.
“We did it in every class except for pre-school,” he said.
In St. Rose High School just across the campus, students raised $1,816 and counting for the Connecticut parish with a green band sale – the color chosen because the school colors in Newtown are green and white, said Sister of St. Joseph Eileen Rush, campus minister.
The band sale, she said, embodies the St. Joseph tradition of “giving and receiving in the name of Jesus Christ. It fits with the idea: we gave and they received; they gave and we received.”
Mercy Sister Donna M. D’Alia, religious education director in St. Rose Parish, Belmar, sounded similar notes on the participation of the religious education students.
“Because we were also St. Rose of Lima Parish, they gave us a donation,” said Sister Donna. She said it was important for the religious education classes to offer their own condolences with spiritual bouquets which were also sent to their namesake parish.
Sister Donna recalled being very moved by the way the Connecticut parish had reached out. “I thought that was no coincidence. I felt the connection with us both being St. Rose of Lima. I told the kids (in the religious education program) no amount of money is going to take away their pain.
“But we can pray for them, and our kids took to it right away. They decorated the cards and sent them to the religious education program.”
Sister Donna also asked the religious education students to “please say a Rosary, emphasizing the idea of prayer.”
Parishioners also offered consolation as a community to a community that had reached out to them.
Msgr. Arnister, who said such actions embody the need to offer consolation, asked Ginny Blasi, an active parishioner and supervisor of TAG – Teen Action Group – the parish youth group, to set up tables outside the church after every Mass that weekend and ask parishioners to sign sympathy cards which would be sent to their Connecticut counterparts.
“We never met these people but we were so very touched by what they did for us,” said Msgr. Arnister. “We wanted them to feel the light of consolation.”
Blasi made sure the tables were manned for all six Masses. She said that parishioners eagerly responded to the request to sign the sympathy cards. “We still had no power at the time and we had camp lanterns on the tables after the Saturday night Mass and everyone was standing there, signing the cards.
“At one point it was raining,” Blasi said. “But the kids wanted to write the cards. It was so important to all of us to reach out to them the way they had reached out to us. We wrote to them that they were in our hearts and prayers. Whole families came to the tables and wrote the cards and the little kids wanted to say that they were praying for them.”