There is always a memory that sticks out in John Ursin’s mind when it comes to his twin daughters, Anna and Gabrielle. He recalls his daughters — both Pope John XXIII Regional High School graduates this June — running in a fun race during Byram Day and they were in first and second in it. But, rather than finishing in that order, the Ursin twins made sure they tied for first.

In the morning on second Satur­days of the month, part of the basement of the former St. Anthony School in Butler buzzes with activity like at a local supermarket. Shoppers push their carts down wide aisles well stocked with boxed and canned goods. Then they head to a refrigerator section with vegetables and fruits and a freezer department for a variety of meats, chicken, or fish.

Earlier this year, a large team of residents from Chester — all volunteers and mostly from St. Lawrence the Martyr Parish — worked on their computers past midnight to secure up to 2,000 people coveted time slots for COVID-19 vaccines, giving them all hope in saving their own lives and helping to slow the global pandemic.

On Easter Sunday 500 years ago, the Spanish missionaries on the islands of the Philippines brought their Catholic faith to the people there and half a millennium later, generations of Filipinos have continued to pass on the faith. Today, the Philippines is the third largest Catholic country in the world. This moment in Filipino history is being marked in a yearlong celebration that began on Easter this year. The theme of the jubilee celebration is “Gifted to Give.”

The massive protests that took place across Cuba last month were the most widespread the communist country has seen in decades. The protesters, many of them young people, shouted “Freedom,” “Down with Communism,” and “Patria y Vida,” translated as “Homeland and Life,” a battle cry among protestors in direct opposition to the Cuban communist slogan of “Homeland or Death.”

One Chapter, 71 verses, the sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel, tells us of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes; feeding the 5,000; telling the crowd that they should, “… not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life …”; and then telling them that he is the “ Bread of Life” and that he will give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink so that we may have eternal life.