Bishop Joseph Bambera accepts the offertory gifts from Gabriel Klinges and Christopher ‘C.J.’ Tigue, members of the Kindergarten class, during a Thursday morning Mass he celebrated with students of St. Nicholas - St. Mary School in Wilkes-Barre.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
St. Nicholas - St. Mary School Mass precedes Holy Week
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Students at St. Nicholas - St. Mary School line up to take turns reading the ‘Lord, hear our prayer’ petitions during Thursday morning’s Mass in St. Nicholas Church.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
As people file out of the church, Bishop Bambera sends a young worshipper off with a handshake.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Fifth grader Sisilia Steransky and seventh grader Lilah Hilal serve as cantors to lead the singing.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
“Does anybody know what’s coming up on Sunday?” Bishop Joseph C. Bambera asked the children of St. Nicholas – St. Mary School.
Several hands shot up, and a little voice ventured: “Easter?”
Well, not quite yet.
April 2 is Palm Sunday, the bishop said, and “it will lead up to Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the three most important days of the year.”
While Bishop Bambera said he visits each of the 19 schools in the Diocese of Scranton’s school system every year, his visit to St. Nicholas – St. Mary’s students this year coincided with the Thursday morning school Mass immediately preceding Holy Week.
“We do this (celebrate Mass) every Thursday,” school principal Christopher Tigue said. “It’s the focus, the center of our week.”
The bishop asked the children to remember Pope Francis in their prayers because “he’s in the hospital … we want to pray that God gives him strength.”
And he told them about the two weeks he spent this summer in the country of Ghana on the West Coast of Africa, visiting a diocese that sent eight priests and one sister to work in the Diocese of Scranton, among them “Father Richard” at St. Faustina’s in Nanticoke and “Father Philbert” at St. Jude’s in Mountain Top.
On his trip to Africa, Bishop Bambera said, he toured schools in cities that had high-tech equipment and uniforms similar to the maroon shirts and plaid jumpers the St. Nicholas – St. Mary’s students wore.
“If you closed your eyes,” the bishop said, “you’d think you were here in Wilkes-Barre.”
But the school that made the most vivid impression was a rural one, where he could see “chickens and goats and sheep walking around” on the rocky ground outside. “There was no front door, no security, no hallway, no principal’s office,” he said.
His host asked the children at the Ghana school, “Can anyone tell Bishop Bambera something about God?” and the answer came: “God loves us.”
That prompted another question. “If God loves you so much, what are you supposed to do?”
The answer came from the children in Ghana: “Love our neighbor.”
“Those boys and girls had so little,” Bishop Bambera told the congregation in Wilkes-Barre, which included parents and grandparents as well as school children. “Yet they believed they were loved by God and called to love their neighbor.
“If God loves us, it’s our responsibility to give that love away. It’s our responsibility to take what we’ve been given and make somebody else’s life better.”
With compliments to the choir and other participants, the bishop concluded the Mass, and the school principal led the congregation in a prayer: “Let it be known to all who enter here that Jesus Christ is the the reason for this school, the unseen but ever-present teacher in its classes, the model of its faculty and the inspiration of its students.”
St. Nicholas – St. Mary School has 287 students in preschool through eighth-grade, the principal said. They come from as far away as Mountain Top, Nanticoke, Pittston and Shickshinny to attend the downtown Wilkes-Barre school.