From Father Steven - June 6, 2021

Welcome Fr. Kevin
 
I'm Father Kevin Pleitez, and I am currently twenty-six years old. I was born in Honduras and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut. When I was seven years old, I moved to the United States with my parents and older brother. While growing up, I strove to achieve the "American Dream" by dedicating my time solely to studies, work, and sports. I was very far from the Church and had my ups and downs like any teenager. Although, I had everything: a scholarship to UConn, many friends, and the "freedom" to do anything that I wanted. I still had an immense inner void that only God could fill. At this moment of my life, a friend invited me to return to the Church.
 
Upon my return, I was baffled by the spiritual richness of the Church and how much I had been missing out. While in the Church, this void began to be filled by gradually experiencing God's love, patience, and forgiveness. This experience enabled me to reassess my life and to discern that God was calling to the priesthood. This led me to enter the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of Boston in 2012. As a seminarian, I studied for six years and spent three years as a missionary in Arizona, Minnesota, and in the Holy Land.  
 
A few days ago, I was ordained a priest by Cardinal Sean O' Malley. Looking back into my life, I can truly say that God is faithful and that He acts through His Church. As I begin my ministry, I hope to serve in the same manner as Christ has served me through many priests and ministers in the Church.  
 
Lastly, I'm happy to be assigned to Immaculate Conception Parish and look forward to meeting many of you!  
 

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Dear Brother’s and Sisters,
 
This weekend the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Everything began in the region of Liege in Belgium back in the 1200’s. Liege had a monastery that had a great devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Indeed, the city became known as the Eucharistic Cenacle. At that time, a young nun, Saint Juliana, had a vision of a Splendid full Moon with a dark spot. It represented the splendor presence of the Church on earth, but it was lacking a liturgical feast when the faithful could contemplate the Holy Eucharist. After many years that she kept the secret vision to herself, she finally revealed it to the local bishop. After some hesitation, he finally agreed to create this feast in his diocese that soon it spread all over the world. Eventually, in 1264, this feast became official in the whole Church.
 
Since then, throughout centuries, there was a tradition to process with the Body of Christ (Corpus Christi in Latin) through the streets of the cities. In some places, the tradition continues until today, in which the people from the towns would create special carpets for the procession to go over. In Latin America, there are many places where the whole town come together to prepare long carpets made of saw dust to cover the streets where the Blessed Sacrament is processed. The carpets have many faith inspired figures. This year, we created a carpet for in front of the altar where the blessed Sacrament will be placed that will have a figure of the Holy Spirit, the Body and Blood of Christ, and the Lamb of God. Please come to check it out.  We will have a time of Adoration between 2:00 - 3:00pm in the Church, with our procession starting at 3:00pm, which will lead us through the streets of Marlboro until we reach our parking lot. There we will be able to spend some time in adoration lead by the music by cantors of all three communities.
 
God bless,
Fr. Steven