DON BOSCO PREP CELEBRATES MHC WITH MAY CROWNING

Students and faculty members at Don Bosco Prep in Ram-sey, N.J., celebrated the feast of Mary Help of Christians on Wednesday, May 24, with a serv-ice in the DeSales Hall Audito- rium followed by the May crowning of the statue of Mary at the school’s grotto.

In the auditorium, coordina-tor of youth ministry Fr.Matthew DeGance led the stu-dents in prayers and a decade of the Rosary, telling them to “pray to Mary, as Don Bosco did.” He told them, “She will guide you and assist you, and when you pray to her she will provide you with a direct line to Jesus.

The boys then picked up one white, long-stem flower each and carried them as they formed a Rosary pro-cession from DeSales Hall around the construction of the new academic learning center, Savio Hall, to the school’s Lourdes grotto. The boys then gave their flowers and prayer intentions to Fr. DeGance and Bro. Sasika Lokuhettige, while mem-bers of school band and cho-rus performed.

The president of the junior class, Michael Geraci, hopped aboard a construction lift and was raised to the level of the statue of our Lady, and he crowned it with a wreath of tiny flowers in honor of the feast of Mary Help of Christians. Fr. James H euser, DBP’s director-president, praised the students for their attentiveness and solemnity in prayer. The ceremony was beau-tiful and reminiscent of the decades of May Crowning ceremonies held at Don Bosco Prep in the 1930s and 40s, to which Catholics from a wide geographic area would travel every year.