Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Paterson Sunday, Oct. 1 where he celebrated Mass for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The pastoral visit also marked the feast day of the parish’s patron, St. Michael the Archangel, which is on Sept. 29. It also commemorates the feast days of Archangels, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.

It was a historic year in the Catholic Church as faithful worldwide marked the centennial of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. In the Paterson Diocese, the anniversary was celebrated during Masses, pilgrimages to the site, novenas, holy hours and educational programs.

From a corner of the crowded faculty lounge of Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta on a recent Monday evening, a tall young woman asked Bishop Serratelli an insightful question: “How do you focus on prayer?” That question came from Zofia Schreiber, a Pope John sophomore and one of 47 women from the Diocese and beyond, who attended the “Pizza Night with the Bishop” vocations-awareness event for young women with Bishop Serratelli on Sept. 25 at St. Pope John.

On Sept. 30, Bishop Serratelli helped to celebrate the 60th anniversary of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mountain Lakes — a close-knit Morris County community that remains committed to deepening its spirituality, serving the poor and strengthening social ties among the faithful. The Bishop presided at a Mass as part of the parish’s anniversary celebrations under the theme “Remember, Rejoice and Recommit” which will conclude at the end of the year.

Trial attorney Michael Critchley Sr. recalled the rock-solid faith of St. Thomas More, the Church’s patron of the legal profession, after having experienced the joy of receiving the diocesan Advocati Christi Award Oct. 1. The award was presented to Critchley after the second annual diocesan Red Mass at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard in Madison. The honoree challenged the many judges, lawyers and other legal professionals who attended the liturgy, to emulate the saint by living their “convictions and beliefs” everyday — especially in times of crisis.

The fact that every citizen in our nation knows their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America and that it is the supreme law of the United States should be a given.