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When people walk in the same footsteps as the founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence whose canonization is currently under review, they are not taking a tour but are participating in a pilgrimage. Sister Mary Virginie Fish, O.S.P., insists the Mother Mary Lange Pilgrimage in and around Baltimore be called just that. “It’s not a tour,” Sister Virginie said emphatically. “This journey is a prayerful excursion one takes in a spirit of penance and reflection, which is indeed the true definition of a pilgrimage.” An average of 12 groups request a pilgrimage annually to learn about Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, the Caribbean-born woman who helped establish St. Frances Academy in Baltimore to educate black children, and the Oblate Sisters of Providence – the Catholic Church’s first order for African-American women religious – in 1829.

The new $15 million Our Daily Bread Employment Center and soup kitchen will not open to serve meals to Baltimore’s poor and homeless until June 4, but the halls of the three-story, 52,000-square-foot building are already filled with people. Contractors worked to ready the new site at 725 Fallsway for its May 24 dedication and June opening. In addition to Our Daily Bread, the new center will also be home to Catholic Charities’ Christopher Place Employment Academy and Maryland Re-entry Partnership – a program that enables formerly incarcerated men to successfully reintegrate into the community.

WASHINGTON – Along with all the other military jargon and abbreviations, a relatively new term keeps bubbling up to the surface at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, as well as in popular parlance: IED. It’s short for improvised explosive device. IEDs account for a large share of the wounds sustained by U.S. soldiers in Iraq – and for a large share of the patients at Walter Reed, many of whom have lost limbs because of the devices. The patient information sheets at Walter Reed aren’t always accurate, but they include identification of patients by religion. Father Patrick Kenny, the only full-time Catholic chaplain at Walter Reed, uses them to greet, comfort and bless the Catholic patients there. Sgt. Juan Roldan was with his infantry unit when one of the devices exploded. The injuries he sustained required that both his legs be amputated above the knee. “I don’t remember much,” Roldan said softly as his mother stayed by the foot of his bed. “I think I’ll be here for a while.” “He’ll be walking – soon,” Father Kenny said, providing positive reinforcement to Mr. Roldan after extending a blessing to the soldier.

DALLAS – Bishop Kevin J. Farrell was installed May 1 as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Dallas during a Mass at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe attended by an overflow crowd of more than 2,000 people. The two-hour Mass was concelebrated by archbishops, bishops and priests from Texas and from around the United States. They included Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington. Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., read the apostolic mandate appointing Bishop Farrell to Dallas. Bishop Brian Farrell, who is secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the brother of Bishop Kevin Farrell, also concelebrated the Mass.

Instead of asking for presents for her seventh birthday, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Edgewater, parishioner Sophie Smith asked her friends to help sponsor a child in Haiti. Sophie, her brother Sam Smith and other young people have taken the lead in raising money for Our Lady of Perpetual Help’s new sister parish, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Perodin, in Haiti. Sam has been collecting spare change from parishioners after Masses each weekend while his friend Tyler Phillips, 10, sells colorful pencils with the words “Give a hand to Haiti” engraved on them for $1.25 a piece. “We are more fortunate than them and they are poor so we should help them,” said Sophie while Sam added, “knowing they need our help” is what drives him to collect donations.