(Utica, NY – March 2013) St. Joseph-St. Patrick Church at 702 Columbia Street in Utica will celebrate its 24th annual Divine Mercy Sunday on April 7 with an afternoon of services.
The featured homilist will be the Rev. Richard E. Dellos, pastor. On May 18, Fr. Dellos will celebrate the 45th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He began his religious life in December of 1967 when he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in Rochester. Fr. Dellos served as the liaison to the bishop for the Charismatic Renewal in the Syracuse Diocese. Fr. Dellos noted that the mission statement for St. Joseph-St. Patrick Church includes spreading the message of Divine Mercy.
Services start with music at 2 p.m., followed by the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 2:30 and then Mass at 3 p.m. Following Mass, there will be veneration of the Divine Mercy Image and a blessing with a relic of St. Faustina Kowalska.
“The message and devotion to Jesus as the Divine Mercy – that God loves us and wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins – is based on the writings of Saint Faustina of Poland,” explained Betty Frank, OFS, who helped coordinate the Divine Mercy services.
She noted that Pope John Paul II, who was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011, had encouraged the devotion, and had “described Divine Mercy as the answer to the world’s problems and the message of the third millennium.”