WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province elected a new leadership team to serve during the 2023-’26 term that includes Father John Olenick as provincial vicar. Father Olenick was born and raised in Winston-Salem and worked at the Winston-Salem Journal and then for R.J. Reynolds before entering the Redemptorist congregation in 1996. He was ordained a priest in 2003, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
The new members of the Ordinary Provincial Council will guide the missionary activities of the Baltimore province. The elected leadership team assumes leadership under the Redemptorist theme “Missionaries of Hope in the Footsteps of the Redeemer.”
The Redemptorists are a religious congregation of priests and brothers founded in 1732 by St. Alphonsus Liguori in Naples, Italy. More than 4,000 Redemptorists are currently working with the poor and most abandoned in nearly every part of the world. More than 150 Redemptorist priests, brothers, and students represent the Baltimore province in the United States. Redemptorist priests staff two parishes in the Diocese of Charlotte: St. James Church in Concord and St. Joseph Church in Kannapolis.
Pandemic halted monthly group, so they went daily
José Luis García and his wife are part of the group that has coordinated daily recitation of the rosary via Zoom almost three years ago. The spiritual practice has since become part of their daily life. (Photo Provided) CHARLOTTE — With the start of the pandemic and social distancing mandates across the country in March 2020, organizers of the Alegría Hispana Choir’s Rosary at St. Gabriel Parish in Charlotte were left in confusion and despair.
After more than 15 years of gathering to pray the rosary once a month, its members and occasional guests thought the tradition had come to an end. However, something new and hopeful emerged amid a time of great fear and confusion. Since March of 2020, the Hispanic prayer group at St. Gabriel adapted, taking their faithful tradition to new heights: instead of praying the rosary once a month, the group began a virtual daily rosary, uniting and inspiring a local and international community.
Augusto Frattini, one of the members of the choir, proposed to Carmen Calvar, director of Alegría Hispana, to take advantage of the new technologies that appeared, including Zoom, to continue virtually with the rosary. Pilar Castañeda, another member of the choir, stepped up, providing technical support to pray the rosary together online.
Since 2020, they have prayed a daily rosary virtually. At first, only eight participants logged on, but the prayer group now has more than 100 members scattered across the world, including Canada, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the United States.
Last year when social isolation measures were relaxed, some people thought this virtual rosary would fall by the wayside.
Yet the virtual prayer group had taken on a life and blessing of its own. Thanks to the collaboration of members José Luis García and his wife Ada, a group of between 20 and 30 members is on its way to completing a third consecutive year of praying the rosary together every day.
“After the last wave of the pandemic, the number of participants decreased,” said García, who explained that with the return of usual activities, parishioners also returned to the presence of their parish groups.
“However, for many, as in my case, it became a point of contact, part of a daily spiritual exercise, part of our lives, and the rosary always prevailed before other activities,” he said.
Throughout their prayerful perseverance, it wasn’t all happiness for the couple, however. Ada and Jose both got sick with COVID-19, and Ada even received treatments for cancer three times since 2020.
“Even then, with Ada in her bed and me from the computer, we remained faithful to the task of facilitating the rosary each and every day,” Garcia said.
During the rosary, which the group prays daily at 8:30 p.m., songs and prayers of healing are recited for those who are included in a regularly updated list of the sick.
“The rosary became a refuge, an area where we could maintain the relationship of community and permanent spiritual contact. And this generated a commitment in which all of us who organized the prayer were involved,” Garcia said.
“We have experienced God’s love and miracles in the different needs of the group,” added Pilar Castañeda. “Even without Adita or me, the rosary would continue because it is the work of the Holy Spirit and of our Blessed Mother Mary. Looking at the results of these almost three years, I have no doubt that prayer is important and effective.”
— César Hurtado
More online
At www.bit.ly/3XenG4b: Join the daily rosary every night at 8:30 p.m. via Zoom