Spirituality and Healing
From Fr. John . . .
I am so blessed and graced by Our Lord to be able return to Cheektowaga where I began my journey in your family at Resurrection Parish while being mentored by Fr. Conrad Stachowiak while a transitional deacon throughout 2013 - 2014. I was able to work together with both hearing and Deaf individuals in ministry and community. Many of you lifted me up in prayer and caring as I became a priest in 2014. Because of your loving support, this area and the community have a special place in my heart. Though growing up in Duquesne, PA, a small steel mill town near Pittsburgh, I have found my home in Western New York for the past 36 years. Besides living in Pennsylvania and New York, I resided in southern California for ten years as I completed my graduate studies and began my career paths in psychology and university teaching. These initial experiences paved a way for me to discover God’s greatest blessing and gift to my life -- my vocational call. This divine gift eventually brought me here to this beautiful area and community and your sacred grounds.
Prior to being assigned to the Catholic Family of Cheektowaga, my previous placement in the Buffalo Diocese was as pastor in Olean at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and St. John the Evangelist. When my ministry in Olean came to an end, I was given a special assignment in the foothills of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri where I began further studies at Assumption Abbey (a Cistercian Monastery living among several Vietnamese monks), Nazareth Hermitage both in Ava, MO, and at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. As a member of clergy, a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist, I have ministered alongside the vulnerable of all ages including those with physical, mental health and spiritual struggles, and with families in crisis and/or those coping with bereavement and loss. Given my professional and ministerial experiences, our Shepherd, Bishop Mike, supported and commissioned me to develop special programming in Spirituality and Healing. The vision of this programming included the developing and implementing of the project at sites across the Diocese and to begin within our own Cheektowaga family community. After ten months of being away on my further studies assignment, I arrived back here in the area about two weeks ago named as one of your senior parochial vicars and the Coordinator of Healing Ministries throughout the Diocese. I reside in the rectory at Resurrection parish. I would love to hear from you as we continue together revealing God’s plan and mission of healing and hope. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] and/or at 716-683-3712.
Besides being thrilled and filled with joy to continue my vocational journey here in Cheektowaga, I am also excited now to root for my two favorite football teams – the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have suffered greatly while living for ten months among Kansas City Chief fans (smile), Go Bills!
In closing, I want to thank you for your very warm and encouraging welcome and support. I so look forward to meeting and getting to know each of you as we walk together with Fr. Todd, Fr. Lou, the staff, and volunteers, while on this journey of Hope, Healing, Love and Peace, during this Jubilee Year and beyond.
God’s Blessings and His Graces in the New Year and Always,
Fr. John
I am so blessed and graced by Our Lord to be able return to Cheektowaga where I began my journey in your family at Resurrection Parish while being mentored by Fr. Conrad Stachowiak while a transitional deacon throughout 2013 - 2014. I was able to work together with both hearing and Deaf individuals in ministry and community. Many of you lifted me up in prayer and caring as I became a priest in 2014. Because of your loving support, this area and the community have a special place in my heart. Though growing up in Duquesne, PA, a small steel mill town near Pittsburgh, I have found my home in Western New York for the past 36 years. Besides living in Pennsylvania and New York, I resided in southern California for ten years as I completed my graduate studies and began my career paths in psychology and university teaching. These initial experiences paved a way for me to discover God’s greatest blessing and gift to my life -- my vocational call. This divine gift eventually brought me here to this beautiful area and community and your sacred grounds.
Prior to being assigned to the Catholic Family of Cheektowaga, my previous placement in the Buffalo Diocese was as pastor in Olean at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and St. John the Evangelist. When my ministry in Olean came to an end, I was given a special assignment in the foothills of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri where I began further studies at Assumption Abbey (a Cistercian Monastery living among several Vietnamese monks), Nazareth Hermitage both in Ava, MO, and at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. As a member of clergy, a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist, I have ministered alongside the vulnerable of all ages including those with physical, mental health and spiritual struggles, and with families in crisis and/or those coping with bereavement and loss. Given my professional and ministerial experiences, our Shepherd, Bishop Mike, supported and commissioned me to develop special programming in Spirituality and Healing. The vision of this programming included the developing and implementing of the project at sites across the Diocese and to begin within our own Cheektowaga family community. After ten months of being away on my further studies assignment, I arrived back here in the area about two weeks ago named as one of your senior parochial vicars and the Coordinator of Healing Ministries throughout the Diocese. I reside in the rectory at Resurrection parish. I would love to hear from you as we continue together revealing God’s plan and mission of healing and hope. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] and/or at 716-683-3712.
Besides being thrilled and filled with joy to continue my vocational journey here in Cheektowaga, I am also excited now to root for my two favorite football teams – the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have suffered greatly while living for ten months among Kansas City Chief fans (smile), Go Bills!
In closing, I want to thank you for your very warm and encouraging welcome and support. I so look forward to meeting and getting to know each of you as we walk together with Fr. Todd, Fr. Lou, the staff, and volunteers, while on this journey of Hope, Healing, Love and Peace, during this Jubilee Year and beyond.
God’s Blessings and His Graces in the New Year and Always,
Fr. John
From Fr. John -- On Spirituality and Healing . . .
In last week’s bulletin message, I reported that Bishop Mike commissioned me to develop special programming in Spirituality and Healing throughout the Diocese. The vision of this programming included the development of the project in established sites across the Diocese beginning with our own Cheektowaga family community. The Bishop assigned me to the Catholic Family of Cheektowaga recognizing the gifts of the parish families in its churches, its buildings and grounds, and most importantly, you, its devoted, committed and loving faithful. He gave me the honor and privilege to serve as one of your senior parochial vicars and to be the Coordinator of Healing Ministry within the Diocese. This assignment is timely in our Church as Pope Francis has named 2025 as a Jubilee year, a year to celebrate and to be Pilgrims of Hope. Bishop Mike, seeing the great need in the Catholic Church and in our local parish families, was inspired by the Spirit to address the challenges, stress and struggles facing our Diocese in the present age in a unique way within this significant year. We all crave the presence of Our Lord and for Him to recreate us, making all things new as we enter more deeply into our spirituality and healing process. During this important and sacred me, the Bishop asks that we petition the Lord and through the intercession of Our Lady to continue to walk in the pathway of peace as he declared 2025, a Year of Healing. In his Diocesan letter dated December 1, 2024, our Bishop Mike stated . . . “in conjunction with the Holy See’s Jubilee Year, we as a local Church, [united with the world as Pilgrims of Hope] will come together in prayer and action to ask the Lord to heal the wounds [and] divisions in our midst . . . we here in the Diocese of Buffalo will look forward to opportunities for dialogue and prayer, to gather and go out in the Lord’s name like never before.”
In an initial response to this commissioning where we are called to the discipleship for Healing and Hope, while in Southern Missouri, I developed programming in Spirituality and Healing that I believe could, with the Spirit’s guidance, support us in our journey. In this Jubilee year, we will use our already established, current liturgical and devotional practices from our parish traditions as well as those, that we as a Catholic Community, will determine to meet some of the needs of our family of parishes and then shared across the Diocese. These liturgies, devotions and practices will be used to support and renew our brothers and sisters in faith. I ask you to join me in our Catholic Community of Cheektowaga’s pilgrimage of Hope and Healing. In our joint efforts, we can bring to our Diocese the divine request of becoming instruments of spiritual growth and healing to help each of us respond to the Lord’s personal call. We are asked to answer the call to help Our Lord in Heaven, our Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, our local Shepherd, Bishop Mike and our pastor of our family, Fr. Todd, to be God’s who guide us as partners in recreation through the intercession of Our Dear Mother, as we accept this opportunity of grace and blessing. In future bulletins and correspondences, I will highlight some of the steps that we can take together to bring forth God’s plan for healing and spirituality throughout our family and ask for your support and help in bringing specific aspects of the programming to fruition within the parishes of Buffalo. I will also share specific Scripture passages, materials and related information that will help strengthen and provide us with the wisdom flowing from the Holy Spirit that will guide us on our journey forward. Stay tuned for future updates and do not hesitate to contact me for further clarification or information ([email protected] and/or at 716-683-3712).
As we have heard in Sacred Scripture these first weeks of ordinary me, the Lord travels throughout the communities and sought out the vulnerable and spread the Kingdom through teaching and healing as He lifted up all through His mission of love, bringing all to the wholeness of life. He now asks us to follow Him in this mission. . . “. . . they went forth . . . while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” -- Mark 16:20.
Let us be a sign, an instrument of goodness, healing and hope throughout our family in Cheektowaga and beyond. To begin a new phase of our journey of healing and hope, I ask you to mark your calendars for a special event that you may have experienced before – A Living Rosary to be held in Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel on February 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This date was designated by Pope Saint John Paul II as the World Day of the Sick. We will gather in a late afternoon/evening hour (specific me to be determined) as “beads of light” to pray through the intercession of Our Lady for healing, hope and peace in our local communities and in our World. Stay tuned for more details. I look forward to ministering with you in our joint mission of caring and love.
God’s Blessings and His Graces,
Fr. John
In last week’s bulletin message, I reported that Bishop Mike commissioned me to develop special programming in Spirituality and Healing throughout the Diocese. The vision of this programming included the development of the project in established sites across the Diocese beginning with our own Cheektowaga family community. The Bishop assigned me to the Catholic Family of Cheektowaga recognizing the gifts of the parish families in its churches, its buildings and grounds, and most importantly, you, its devoted, committed and loving faithful. He gave me the honor and privilege to serve as one of your senior parochial vicars and to be the Coordinator of Healing Ministry within the Diocese. This assignment is timely in our Church as Pope Francis has named 2025 as a Jubilee year, a year to celebrate and to be Pilgrims of Hope. Bishop Mike, seeing the great need in the Catholic Church and in our local parish families, was inspired by the Spirit to address the challenges, stress and struggles facing our Diocese in the present age in a unique way within this significant year. We all crave the presence of Our Lord and for Him to recreate us, making all things new as we enter more deeply into our spirituality and healing process. During this important and sacred me, the Bishop asks that we petition the Lord and through the intercession of Our Lady to continue to walk in the pathway of peace as he declared 2025, a Year of Healing. In his Diocesan letter dated December 1, 2024, our Bishop Mike stated . . . “in conjunction with the Holy See’s Jubilee Year, we as a local Church, [united with the world as Pilgrims of Hope] will come together in prayer and action to ask the Lord to heal the wounds [and] divisions in our midst . . . we here in the Diocese of Buffalo will look forward to opportunities for dialogue and prayer, to gather and go out in the Lord’s name like never before.”
In an initial response to this commissioning where we are called to the discipleship for Healing and Hope, while in Southern Missouri, I developed programming in Spirituality and Healing that I believe could, with the Spirit’s guidance, support us in our journey. In this Jubilee year, we will use our already established, current liturgical and devotional practices from our parish traditions as well as those, that we as a Catholic Community, will determine to meet some of the needs of our family of parishes and then shared across the Diocese. These liturgies, devotions and practices will be used to support and renew our brothers and sisters in faith. I ask you to join me in our Catholic Community of Cheektowaga’s pilgrimage of Hope and Healing. In our joint efforts, we can bring to our Diocese the divine request of becoming instruments of spiritual growth and healing to help each of us respond to the Lord’s personal call. We are asked to answer the call to help Our Lord in Heaven, our Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, our local Shepherd, Bishop Mike and our pastor of our family, Fr. Todd, to be God’s who guide us as partners in recreation through the intercession of Our Dear Mother, as we accept this opportunity of grace and blessing. In future bulletins and correspondences, I will highlight some of the steps that we can take together to bring forth God’s plan for healing and spirituality throughout our family and ask for your support and help in bringing specific aspects of the programming to fruition within the parishes of Buffalo. I will also share specific Scripture passages, materials and related information that will help strengthen and provide us with the wisdom flowing from the Holy Spirit that will guide us on our journey forward. Stay tuned for future updates and do not hesitate to contact me for further clarification or information ([email protected] and/or at 716-683-3712).
As we have heard in Sacred Scripture these first weeks of ordinary me, the Lord travels throughout the communities and sought out the vulnerable and spread the Kingdom through teaching and healing as He lifted up all through His mission of love, bringing all to the wholeness of life. He now asks us to follow Him in this mission. . . “. . . they went forth . . . while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” -- Mark 16:20.
Let us be a sign, an instrument of goodness, healing and hope throughout our family in Cheektowaga and beyond. To begin a new phase of our journey of healing and hope, I ask you to mark your calendars for a special event that you may have experienced before – A Living Rosary to be held in Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel on February 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This date was designated by Pope Saint John Paul II as the World Day of the Sick. We will gather in a late afternoon/evening hour (specific me to be determined) as “beads of light” to pray through the intercession of Our Lady for healing, hope and peace in our local communities and in our World. Stay tuned for more details. I look forward to ministering with you in our joint mission of caring and love.
God’s Blessings and His Graces,
Fr. John
From Fr. John : Our Healing Ministry
As Catholics, as Christians, we are blessed with an always faithful, always trustworthy way of healing, a way that gives consolation, a way to give us Hope -- it is the Lord -- our faith in a loving, compassionate, protective, peace-filled personable God.
In all situations, in our celebrations and in our sorrows and sufferings, God provides us through His Diine ways or through others he places in our lives, opportunities of Grace. Family members, friends, and caring others provide support and opportunities for healing and hope to help as we follow the second great commandment of love, “Love Our Neighbor as Ourselves.” This commandment is exemplified in our words and deeds we offer each other in support and compassionate ways that mirror the love of God. Here in our Catholic Family of Cheektowaga, we will be forefront in building opportunities of healing and hope for those vulnerable, for all of us, in our parish families and surrounding areas.
We ask Our Lady, who has our Catholic community under the mantle of her care, to intercede for us all during this Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis and this Year of Healing established by Bishop Mike. We begin our journey of Hope and Healing by gathering at a Living Rosary on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes – You are invited to join the faithful to pray for Healing, Hope, and Peace.
What: Living Rosary and (Sacrament of the Healing to Follow)
When: The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Tuesday, February 11th 6:00 pm
Where: Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel
As Catholics, as Christians, we are blessed with an always faithful, always trustworthy way of healing, a way that gives consolation, a way to give us Hope -- it is the Lord -- our faith in a loving, compassionate, protective, peace-filled personable God.
In all situations, in our celebrations and in our sorrows and sufferings, God provides us through His Diine ways or through others he places in our lives, opportunities of Grace. Family members, friends, and caring others provide support and opportunities for healing and hope to help as we follow the second great commandment of love, “Love Our Neighbor as Ourselves.” This commandment is exemplified in our words and deeds we offer each other in support and compassionate ways that mirror the love of God. Here in our Catholic Family of Cheektowaga, we will be forefront in building opportunities of healing and hope for those vulnerable, for all of us, in our parish families and surrounding areas.
We ask Our Lady, who has our Catholic community under the mantle of her care, to intercede for us all during this Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis and this Year of Healing established by Bishop Mike. We begin our journey of Hope and Healing by gathering at a Living Rosary on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes – You are invited to join the faithful to pray for Healing, Hope, and Peace.
What: Living Rosary and (Sacrament of the Healing to Follow)
When: The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Tuesday, February 11th 6:00 pm
Where: Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel
From Fr. John : Our Healing Ministry You are invited!
Our Catholic Family of Cheektowaga is providing an opportunity of healing and hope for those vulnerable, for all of us, in our parish families and surrounding areas. Come participate in or pray with “A Living Rosary” Tuesday, February 11th at 6:00 pm on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes which is also the World Day of Prayer for the Sick and or join us for the Sacrament of Anointing following our prayers.
In a Living Rosary, each person stands in the place of a bead of the rosary and leads the prayer when it is his/her turn. Each living bead (each person who is a bead) will hold a candle representing the bead and a card that will have the specific prayer to read (Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be). All materials will be provided plus a rosary that you can take home and share as gift to another. If you do not wish to be a living bead, please come and fill up the pews as we pray the rosary together! Most people who a end this beautiful prayer to Our LORD and Our Lady, leave with a lightness of the Spirit and a new understanding of unity and power through prayer. The Living Rosary brings to life our body and soul.
** To be a living bead (saying a prayer and holding a candle), please contact Fr. John at [email protected]; 683 3712, and/or sign up on sheets at the entrances to our parishes -- otherwise, come and pray the rosary with our fellow parishioners**
We ask Our Lady, who has our Catholic community under the mantle of her care, to intercede for us all during this Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis and this Year of Healing established by Bishop Mike. On the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes – You are invited to join the faithful to pray for Healing, Hope, and Peace and experience Our Lord’s Healing through His gifts of the devotion of the Rosary and/or His Healing Sacrament.
What: Living Rosary and (Sacrament of the Healing to Follow)
When: The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Tuesday, February 11th 6:00 pm
Where: Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel
Our Catholic Family of Cheektowaga is providing an opportunity of healing and hope for those vulnerable, for all of us, in our parish families and surrounding areas. Come participate in or pray with “A Living Rosary” Tuesday, February 11th at 6:00 pm on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes which is also the World Day of Prayer for the Sick and or join us for the Sacrament of Anointing following our prayers.
In a Living Rosary, each person stands in the place of a bead of the rosary and leads the prayer when it is his/her turn. Each living bead (each person who is a bead) will hold a candle representing the bead and a card that will have the specific prayer to read (Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be). All materials will be provided plus a rosary that you can take home and share as gift to another. If you do not wish to be a living bead, please come and fill up the pews as we pray the rosary together! Most people who a end this beautiful prayer to Our LORD and Our Lady, leave with a lightness of the Spirit and a new understanding of unity and power through prayer. The Living Rosary brings to life our body and soul.
** To be a living bead (saying a prayer and holding a candle), please contact Fr. John at [email protected]; 683 3712, and/or sign up on sheets at the entrances to our parishes -- otherwise, come and pray the rosary with our fellow parishioners**
We ask Our Lady, who has our Catholic community under the mantle of her care, to intercede for us all during this Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis and this Year of Healing established by Bishop Mike. On the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes – You are invited to join the faithful to pray for Healing, Hope, and Peace and experience Our Lord’s Healing through His gifts of the devotion of the Rosary and/or His Healing Sacrament.
What: Living Rosary and (Sacrament of the Healing to Follow)
When: The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Tuesday, February 11th 6:00 pm
Where: Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel