Port Chester: St. John Bosco Parish Celebrates Holy Week

By Fr. Eddie Chincha, SDB, CYM, St. John Bosco Parish

(Port Chester, NY – April 23) – Holy Week was a very busy week for St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, as it was for all parishes. On Monday and Tuesday, at least 500 people received the sacrament of Reconciliation. We wanted to ensure that young people took center stage in our ministry. We started by promoting the Stations of the Cross service for high schoolers and middle schoolers during oratory.

Sometimes people think that saying three Hail Marys and giving a Good Night is enough to say that we have done justice to the church [religious] component of the oratory. However, we see that young people are hungry for more spirituality, though they don’t know how to attain it or may not have been formed in it. We used Don Bosco’s model of asking our more formed kids to help us with our newer kids. So our high schoolers who have attended Valdocco retreats or the NCYC were invited and encouraged to lead and participate in our prayer services. Then our Corpus Christi Holy Rosary School kids also helped our new oratory kids to appreciate the Stations of the Cross. Our Friday night oratory is now mostly attended by kids who are part of our parish, but go to public schools, where they do not have these religious opportunities. We are changing that by providing such opportunities for them.

Finally, our young adults led a herculean effort of organizing the live Stations of the Cross through the streets of Port Chester on Good Friday. It is a truly religious experience for the faithful of Port Chester, who take a four-hour journey on foot from Main Street to Westchester Avenue. It was a beautiful witness of faith to the whole town.

The actors are very committed people, who took their role very seriously. They spent most of the morning preparing the costumes and setting up the stages, the speakers, and an outdoor altar for a communion service at the end. Our altar servers were excited to participate throughout the whole procession without any breaks. They see it as an honor to be a part of it. We began at 5:00 p.m. and finished at 9:00 p.m.

Finally, we had 9 adult baptisms and 20 other baptisms for children ages 7 through 13 during the Easter Vigil and Sunday Masses. All our Masses were packed.