Brother Lucianno and a new chapel in Los Lanos

April 17th saw a member of our parish, Brother Lucianno Rivera Perez, make his final vows as a Carmelite, he will be ordained a priest in the next few months. This will make three ordinations from our humble parish in five years.

St. Theresa of Jesus in Santiago
People often ask me what I do during my time here. I like to point out it sometimes takes a lot to get a little done. To explain what I mean: The above ceremony was first scheduled at 10am on the 17th. This meant that in order to arrive at the church, St. Theresa of Jesus in the city of Santiago, we would have to wake at 6am and depart at 7am on the three-hour drive from Don Juan. Word came that the time had been changed to 8am, meaning rising at 4am to get there on time, which we did.
We arrived at the church on Latin time and it was completely empty. Yes, the ceremony was at 10am.

Last week some of the sisters and I went to pay our respects to a deceased member of the parish in the community of La Haina, which is outside Santo Domingo.
On route we were discussing how to get to the home in question, it turned out that none of us knew the address! Thankfully, we were able to find our way after a few cell phone calls.
If you are an A type person, which I tend to be, life can get to you if you let. My advice is to relax and let the sunshine in.

We recently began construction of a new chapel in Los Lanos. The image below is of the wreckage from the previous chapel.
Los Lanos is an extremely poor, distant, and hard to get to community.

Construction of the new chapel is possible due to the help of Sacred Heart parish in Auburn, New York.

The people of Los Lanos are so grateful to now have a decent home to worship in. We lack money for windows, doors, and pews, which will cost about $2000.

Outdoor mass during reconstruction of chapel in Los Lanos.

Holy Thursday and St Catherine of Siena Parish Youth Group

After indulging myself in my annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Snows in Vail, Colorado I am back on line in the Dominican Republic.

The DR has suffered a very intense drought since the earthquake in Haiti on January 12 until this week, leaving many areas that were formerly green, a parched dull brown. Many communities have been left without water. As a result, the rains this past week were very welcomed by all.

Holy Thursday saw the first use of the new center in L'Elmo, a gift principally of the Sigma Chi Fraternity of the University of Rochester. Click here or scroll back to a previous post to see this wonderful group of young men working on the site. They raised most of the money for the construction of the center. We still lack windows and the doors, the estimated cost of which would be $1100.

Pictures of the washing of the feet and mass, Holy Thursday as well as the old chapel.


Some members of the youth group of St Catherine of Siena Parish were here during Easter Week to paint the center.






before painting

after painting

youth group members with children


I baptized some of the youth group members when they were infants, some 16 years ago.

It was a great experience for them as well as quite nostalgic for me as their former pastor.