By Jennifer Mauro | Associate Editor
For many, the season of Lent is a journey to be taken one step at a time. For those in St. James Parish, Red Bank, it’s a six-week spiritual trek that’s being built brick by brick.
Throughout Lent, the parish’s youth and young adult ministry groups, in conjunction with the parish priests, have been asking children to donate a Lego at Mass and offer a prayer, Our Father or Hail Mary, for each piece given. Youth and young adults are creating a Calvary scene for this Project Resurrection, a display parishioners have seen grow week by week since it sits at the front of the church.
“This helps build the community, because they can see their prayers are part of something greater,” said Mercy Sister Marge Scarpone, who teaches in the adjacent Red Bank Catholic High School.
Father Ariel Robles, parochial vicar, said Project Resurrection began with the desire to encourage children and youth to be active participants in the parish Lenten and Easter celebrations.
“Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we came to realize that one effective strategy of getting them involved in the Church is by using the things that they have and the things they are interested in – Legos,” he said enthusiastically. “The majority of today’s children, if not all, has and loves Legos.”
The issue then became how to make use of Legos in the parish. The answer, Father Robles said, came to him while meditating on the question and finding a photo of a large Lego statue of the Risen Christ on the internet.
“We wanted to be different and a little more dramatic, and so we decided to recreate the Calvary scene with three crosses – Christ’s and those of the robbers,” he said.
Ever since, what started as a project for children has grown to include parishioners of all ages donating Legos. As of press time, one of the crosses had reached four feet.
Ann-Marie DeStefano, parish youth ministry coordinator, said the Lego idea was met with enthusiasm when it was explained to children in the parish’s religious education classes at the start of Lent.
“They got really excited about it, knowing they could come in at Mass and see the fruits of their prayers right there in front of them,” she said.
“Here you have someone in kindergarten making a contribution and feeling their piece is just as important as mom’s piece,” DeStefano added, saying that some parishioners are participating as a family. For example, she said one family donated an entire bin of the building blocks and was going to pray a family Rosary to fulfil their Lego prayer intentions.
Andrea Rimmele, a parish youth ministry member who has been helping build the Calvary scene, said the project has not only brought her closer to God through prayer, but it’s built camaraderie within the group, too.
“We are all working together and enjoying each other’s presence, and we’re becoming closer as a group through it,” said Rimmele, a Middletown High School South senior who’s been part of the youth ministry since eighth grade.
DeStefano said parishioners have also noticed the teambuilding. “I have parents coming up to me saying how great it is to have our youth group spearheading this with our young adult group.”
Sister Marge has personally witnessed how Project Resurrection is encouraging prayer in the lives of young ones. On a recent Sunday, after attending the play “Cinderella” in Red Bank Catholic High School, her five-year-old grandniece presented her with a question: “Can we go to Church?”
There, she unwrapped the Lego she had brought folded up in a pink piece of paper.
“She was so happy to go in and be a part of this, and I was delighted that she had remembered and wanted to be a part of it,” Sister Marge said.
“Many times, it’s the kids who cause the family to remember,” she said of the good number of families participating. “When children want to participate, it often pulls the parents out of their busyness.”
DeStefano said Project Resurrection, with its lessons of prayer and sacrifice, will be an example of almsgiving, too, as the Legos will be donated after the Easter season.
In the meantime, Legos are being collected until Palm Sunday, at which point the youth and young adults will work to complete the Calvary scene. Father Robles hopes to add a Lego statue of the Risen Lord for Easter.
“We shall put the statue in front of the cross to show people that the suffering of Christ did not end in Death, but in the Resurrection – that no matter how long the Calvary is, no matter how heavy our crosses are and no matter how many times we fall and ‘die,’ in the end, there is always a resurrection,” he said. “The last word is not defeat, but victory.”