newsletter
By Ave Maria Editorial
The Ave Maria Young Adults Group has had some changes recently, so this newsletter is a bit of an update about the things going on!
Our beloved fearless leader, Fr. Andrew LaFleur has received a new assignment, and will be the new chaplain of St Joseph’s High School in Trumbull. Thank you Fr. Andrew for all the work you put in leading the charge and starting our group. We wish you luck and offer prayers for your new assignment and for the students of St Joseph’s High School.
Fr. Johnson Singarajan has taken Fr. Andrew’s place at St Mary’s church, and with it, has become our new fearless spiritual leader. He will be leading us at adoration and masses, and even was present at our feast this year. His role will likely look more like a chaplain to the group rather than Fr. Andrew’s active leadership role. He comes to us from formerly being a chaplain at a hospital, but has previously been assigned to parishes all around the world, and he knows 6 languages! Welcome Fr. Johnson, and know we are offering our prayers for you as well!
At 1:30 PM on Saturday August 15th, 2026, the Ave Maria Young Adults group this year decided to step it up a notch from our Assumption party last year, and celebrate in a fuller way, the patronage of our parish.
St Mary’s parish was rededicated some time ago on August 15th, making the feast of the Assumption our feast, and Our Lady, under the title of The Assumption, our patron.
The practice of celebrating your parish’s particular feast day is very popular all over the Catholic world. In Positano, Italy, for example, their patron is coincidentally also Our Lady under the title of the Assumption, their church is Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta (Church of Saint Mary of the Assumption), and they have a major multi-day feast with a free orchestra concert in the town square, many festivities, and it culminates on August 15th in a mass and procession to the sea, ending with fireworks. We don’t have a big enough team for such a grand celebration, but wanted to bring this concept of celebrating your patron to St Mary’s in Bethel.
A team led by Joseph Perrotta organized a mass, procession, and potluck feast dinner. The mass was celebrated by Fr. Andrew LaFleur - the capstone of his tenure as the leader of our group, and the homily was given by Deacon Dominick Angiolillo. Some seminarians from the Diocese provided the music for the mass, chanting traditional Catholic hymns proper to the mass and in honor of Our Lady.
We hired a professional Catholic woodworker from New Jersey to build a processional carrier for our statue (which is normally situated in the school). The carrier was then stained, and a skirt was sewn and added to it by Victoria Bono, a member of our core team. She also sewed the bandanas worn by the carriers (Tony, Max, Ian, and Nico), and made them out of the same fabric to match the carrier.
Pictured: the procession of Our Lady from the mass to the feast
Following the statue and the clergy in the procession was also a tapestry gonfalone of the Immaculate Heart of Mary carried valiantly by Freddy.
We processed with the statue of Our Lady from the mass in the church to the back soccer field by the school, where Father Andrew blessed the statue of our lady, and we subsequently had a potluck feast that included the greatest pulled pork smoked by Grant, incredible sourdough made by Meg, and caponata made by David. The feast lasted until the sun went down, where we hung out and enjoyed each other’s company in celebration of Our Lady being Assumed into Heaven. Photos were taken by our professional photographer, Angus, and shared with members of our group in our WhatsApp chat.
This was a big effort for the group to put on, so thank you to everyone who assisted in setting up, cleaning up, bringing dishes, and offering your prayers in communion with everyone at the feast. We hope the feast will grow next year so more people can partake in the joy of celebrating our parish’s feast day!
After the feast this year and the beautiful aesthetic visuals coming out of some of the photos from the mass, feast, and procession, the Ave Maria Core team has decided to launch a website, incorporating some of these really cool images. They were too good to only be relegated to one instagram post, and to then lost to distant memory. We will be updating the website with information about our events going forward (as well as posting on instagram and sending messages in the WhatsApp chat).
The events section on the site will tell you about our upcoming events, and the publications section will be for newsletters like this one, as well as a place for blog posts for anyone who (with editorial oversight) would like to contribute.
We haven’t decided yet if there will be an email list, as we already now have 3 modes of communication to signal about events, but if there is major interest maybe we can start. If you’d like to stay updated, you can follow us on instagram, or come to one of our events :) and we can add you to the WhatsApp.
Thank you for reading thus far, we are keeping you in our prayers, and please keep us in yours. Stay tuned for the future and more fun things to come!
Viva Maria!
- The Ave Maria Team