During the holy season of Lent, Queen of Angels Parish in Central City will celebrate the time-honored Polish devotion known as Gorzkie Zale or Bitter Lamentations.
These devotions, sung in English, are composed of a three-week cycle reflecting on the Passion of Christ, and form a rich part of the Polish liturgical tradition.
Each celebration will feature a guest speaker.
March 16, 2025
The Theological Virtue of Hope: What is hope and what does it mean to have hope.
Presented by Dr. Kathleen Borres, Ph.D.
Dr. Kathleen Borres, Ph.D., a retired professor of theology of St. Vincent Seminary, Latrobe, PA, earned her doctorate in theology from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, in 2000, with a dissertation on the theological virtue of hope.
Sunday, March 30, 2025 – 3:00PM
Reflections on the Servant of God, Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ
Presented by Ver Rev. Fr. Eugene Ritz, M.Div., M.A., J.C.L.
Very Rev. Fr. Eugene Ritz is Chancellor of the Diocese of Allentown and Co-Postulator for the Cause of Canonization of Father Walter Ciszek, SJ.
Fr. Ciszek, a native of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, secretly entered the Soviet Union in 1939 to serve as a priest when the Church was outlawed in Russia. After serving 23 years as a prisoner in Siberia forced labor camps, he returned to the United States in 1963.
Sunday, April 13, 2025, Palm Sunday – 3:00PM
Conversion story presented by Deacon J. Travis Moger, Ph.D.
Deacon J. Travis Moger, a married husband and father, was an ordained Baptist minister, and converted to Catholicism in 2018. He is a trasitional deacon for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and will be ordained a priest in May of this year.
Deacon Moger received a master’s in theology from Christendom College Graduate School of Theology in 2024; and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2011. He was a Fulbright Scholar, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Germany in 2005-2006; received his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993; and received a Bachelor of Arts from Dallas Baptist University (summa cum laude) in 1988. Deacon Moger also has extensive military service. He has a 26-year military career as a U.S. Navy chaplain and retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve with the rank of captain in 2018.
Following devotions on April 13, there will be a free spaghetti and meatball dinner in the parish hall, open to anyone.
Please take advantage of these spiritual opportunities to help have a meaningful Lent.
