A LOVE STORY
"I would like to tell you a story of love between a people and its parish. A love story that spans 100 years, a period of time much longer than a silver, golden or diamond wedding Anniversary...
We have all participated in this wonderful marriage of people and parish for some portion of these past 100 years. We found our Church in excellent spiritual and physical condition. We used it to foster and prosper our own spiritual and temporal lives and to spread the Good News of the Gospel.
Let us make a solemn pledge here and now to preserve this priceless treasure which we have received and to pass it on in all its pristine glory to those who come after us.
May they who follow, at some future date, after praying the way we do, working the way we do, laughing and crying the way we do, experience what we are feeling at this moment, right now. A sense of thanksgiving, gratitude, joy, accomplishment, and most of all, a spirit of communal love."
Reverend Monsignor Joseph J. Granato
St. Lucy's Church, Newark, New Jersey
"Throughout the past century there has emerged a sense of purpose and perserverance. Generation after generation, each has in its own time and place, each in its own very special way, has illustrated to all the validity of St. Paul when he asks us to remember that "there are in the end three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest off these is love." St. Lucy's parish through its people has for one hundred years expressed love -- love of family, love of friends, love of church and love of God."
Reverend Joseph S. Nativo
St. Lucy's Church, Newark, New Jersey
"St. Lucy's is a Parish that has survived -- indeed thrived -- during some of the most difficult years the Church and the City have ever experienced. While parishes all over the state and country were merging or closing, St. Lucy's grew stronger. The congregation bonded together under the gentle, visionary leadership of Father Granato. It strengthened its position as a site dedicated to St. Gerard and celebrated him in many ways...raising funds through the popular St. Gerard's Festival and constructing a gracious welcoming plaza for St. Lucy's It is a Parish built on traditional values that still maintains a Latin Mass. It is beloved, as is Father Joe."
Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr.
Parishioner and Essex County Executive
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