Diocese Thanks Its Altar Servers

By Stefanie Gutierrez

“Carrying the cross is what I like most. It’s like helping Jesus carry the cross,” said Stephen Reilly, an altar server and fifth-grader at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Sunset Park, who attended Altar Server Day last week.

Sponsored by the Diocesan Vocations Office, 300 altar servers with 50 chaperones from all around the dicoese met at Immaculate Conception Center, Douglaston, on Thursday, May 1, for tours of the building, lunch, a magic show, and Mass celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius Catanello. They also heard testimony from current seminarians who began their journey to the priesthood as altar servers.

Stefanie Gutierrez Photos 

The previous week, another 350 attended a similar Altar Server Day to accommodate the public school spring break.

Altar Server Day has been sponsored by the vocations office for many years, Father Kevin Sweeney, vocations director, explained.

“It recognizes the service that they give to their parishes and to the diocese,” he said. “A lot of priestly vocations started when guys were altar servers. Now that girls are serving, we hope that it can help vocations in religious life as well.”

After tours of the Douglaston facility and lunch, the altar servers went to the auditorium, where they heard witness and testimony from both Father Sweeney and Christian Rada, a second-year seminarian from Blessed Sacrament, Cypress Hills.

Father Sweeney, who said his dream as a child was to be a professional baseball player for the New York Yankees, elicited both cheers from Yankee fans and “boos!” from others who were not.

But, he said, “God has a plan for all of us, and He has a sense of humor. We may have plans for ourselves but God may have others. I grew up in St. Luke’s, Whitestone, and ended up working at the one place I never thought I would step foot in: Shea Stadium… But I really needed a job!”

He shared that when he was 13, he attended Cathedral Preparatory Seminary and “thought about” becoming a priest. “It took me 13 years more to realize this is what I really wanted to be, and I love being a priest.”

“What’s really going to make us happy is when we remember to talk to Jesus about what we want to be when we grow up. We find happiness in ourselves when we ask Jesus what He wants us to be,” Father Sweeney concluded.

Rada shared that he wanted to be a military lawyer, “but I had a moment when I asked God, ‘Where do you want me to be? What do you want me to do?’”

As time passed he realized that maybe “being a lawyer wasn’t for me. As senior year (of high school) approached, I was going between becoming a lawyer and the priesthood.”

He applied to Cathedral Seminary and Residence and “I love it. Priests can have a relationship with people and Jesus that others can’t,” he said.

Rada has been an altar server since third grade. He was recently asked by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio to study philosophy at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in the fall.

Father Sweeney said, “God has a plan for all of us and He has amazing things in store.”

Magician and priest Father Jerry Jecewicz then treated the altar servers to the “Priesto Magic Spectacular” that featured a rabbit, two doves, and Dudley the Wonder Duck, who at the end of the show “magically”

disappeared. The “magic with a message” kept the participants in the auditorium laughing and on their toes, as many tried to figure out how he performed much of his magic act.

ALTAR SERVERS from around the diocese were treated to a special day at the Immaculate Conception Center on May 1 where vocations director Father Kevin Sweeney, top, shared his own vocation story with them. Father Jerry Jecewicz, also known as Priesto, center, performed his magic act and Bishop Ignatius Catanello handed out certificates of thanks to all the altar servers.

Two sisters and a postulant from the Little Sisters of the Poor then spoke to the altar servers and shared their testimonies of how God led them to religious life. Maria, a postulant, explained that she is “someone who is taking her first steps to become a religious sister.” She said she read about Mother Teresa when she was 13, and how Mother Teresa knew at the age of 12 that God was calling her.

“I would read the lives of the saints and would hear this little whisper that perhaps God was calling me,” she related.

During college, Maria volunteered with the Sisters and was “struck by how happy they were and how well they took care of the elderly residents” at the home for the elderly poor that they lead. “It was through this example and model of love that I knew,” she said.

Altar Server Day concluded with Mass, celebrated by Bishop Catanello. He thanked all the young people for their service at the altar and said, “Every time you serve, it makes God smile.”

The vocations office will host Project Andrew on May 30, for an evening of prayer, dinner and conversation with Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, at the John Paul II House of Discernment, 341 Highland Blvd., at 6 p.m. For more information, call Father Sweeney at 718-399-5950 or e-mail vocations@diobrook.org.