One of my first impressions of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH), Brooklyn, was that OLPH is a village. This was/is evident particularly in the English-speaking community – in the children and grandchildren, the descendants of earlier Irish immigration.

In many ways this is the fruit of OLPH Grammar School. People know each other from what street they lived on, who got married to whom, who lived on the second floor, etc. A wonderful sense of community! The same is true now with the Hispanic community. There is a deep sense of belonging to this church community of OLPH.

Speaking of the school, OLPH School is now Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Academy of Brooklyn. It is the only Catholic grammar school in this Deanery. Fr. Frank Skelly, C.Ss.R. dedicates part of his energy to the school. Here are some of his thoughts:

“Our Catholic School proved what Science later verified: children are safer from Covid in school. We went to virtual learning in March 2020, spent the summer sanitizing and recreating the space (having two 8th grades and two 7th grades to allow for social distancing), putting up the now famous plastic shields, eating lunch in classrooms, and checking temperatures daily.

We were ready to open in September and were closed once because Sunset Park was an orange zone, not because any of our students had Covid. Some students, for a variety of reasons, opted for virtual learning, but the majority were in school, with students returning in the course of the year because they were not satisfied with virtual learning. Our school is small—fewer than 200 students—which is a good teacher-student ratio, but a challenge for finances.

We have grades Pre-K-8th and our student population is mostly children of immigrants, primarily Latino and Asian. We have teachers who speak Spanish and Chinese and 98% of them are vaccinated; they are a very dedicated group led by our principal who truly values the passing on of the Catholic Faith. After a year of virtual Masses, we are just now getting back into church to celebrate the Eucharist.”

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood have been part of OLPH since before the school opened in 1903. They began with religious education in the late 1890s, and then staffed OLPH school. The last three Sisters living in the convent were Sister Judith Shea, Sister Mary Doyle, and Sister Lucille Aliperti. They decided to move to St. Patrick in Bay Ridge in March 2021. Sister Lucille is on staff as Pastoral Associate and has been very busy this year with the Food Pantry.

The pandemic affected us greatly. We were closed with the rest of the city from March 15, 2020, till the weekend of July 4, 2020. In October we were shut down because we were in the Orange Zone, which neighbored on the Red Zone, Borough Park. Then at the end of November four of us got Covid-19 and we had to quarantine; another four weeks closed.

As in so many parishes, Zoom became our way of meeting, even among ourselves. Religious Education, Parish Council, Hispanic Council, the Guadalupanos with their weekly rosary, Santo Nombre “visits” to families, Hijas de María, small groups of Renew, Hispanic Círculo de Oración, even pre-Cana for couples who had families and wanted the Sacrament of Matrimony. While this kept a lot of people engaged, many people are not familiar with the internet. They were left out, but not abandoned, since the Eucharistic Ministers kept in touch with their communicants even though they could not visit them.

The Diocese of Brooklyn received a grant for cameras for streaming liturgies on the internet, and OLPH was one of the recipients. As a result, Sunday Masses in English, Spanish and Chinese, as well as weekday Masses in English and Spanish, are streamed. Also, some weddings, funerals, First Communions, and Confirmations are streamed. All Holy Week and Easter Triduum and the Easter Vigil were streamed, as well.

Being a parish with many immigrants, OLPH is blessed with Fr. Ruskin Piedra, C.Ss.R. who has dedicated himself to giving reliable information and legal immigration assistance to the poor and needy in the immigrant community through the Juan Neumann Immigration Center. He is assisted by Fr. Karl Esker, C.Ss.R. and three dedicated office workers. It is certainly a Redemptorist ministry among the poor and most abandoned.

Fr. Joseph Lu serves the Mandarin Chinese community in OLPH. Before the pandemic there were regularly 300 or 400 Chinese parishioners at Sunday Mass, and 25 or 30 at daily Mass. The Chinese RCIA each year has approximately 45 candidates for the Easter Vigil. The Chinese Catholics are very devout and generous with the parish. Fr. Norman Bennett, C.Ss.R. serves the Cantonese Chinese community in a neighboring parish.

Fr. Joseph Tran, C.Ss.R. serves the small Vietnamese community of about 40 parishioners. They are also very devout and dedicated to the parish.

So, this is a bit of what OLPH is in 2021. We are nine Redemptorists: Ruskin Piedra, Clement Krug, Norman Bennett, James Gilmour, Frank Skelly, Karl Esker, James Cascione, Michael Cunningham, Joseph Hung Duc Tran; and Fr. Joseph Kang Qiang Lu, diocesan priest from Shanghai, China.

We are happy to welcome Deacon Song You, C.Ss.R., to our community this summer. He will be ordained in the upper church of the Basilica on July 24, 2021.

We like to say we have a lot of experience, instead of a lot of years! We bring our experience and our enthusiasm to the ministry in OLPH, trusting in the Holy Spirit, Creator Spirit, Giver of Life, who enlightens and empowers us to serve the People of God at OLPH.

Fr. Jim Gilmour, C.Ss.R. (Courtesy of Baltimore Beacon.)