On Friday, March 8th at 7 pm. in the church proper the Women’s Club Ministry will present Mary’s Way of the Cross as part of our Lenten observance of the Stations of the Cross and have invited newly consecrated Hartford Auxiliary Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt to offer a spiritual Marian reflection on the Way of the Cross. Bishop Betancourt was consecrated a bishop on October 18, 2018 by Archbishop Leonard P. Blair at the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Hartford, after being appointed on September 18, 2018 by Pope Francis as titular bishop of Curzola (suppressed and originally found in the country of Croatia) and as Auxiliary Bishop of Hartford.
I am inviting our parishioners to attend this spiritually powerful reflection and to greet our new Bishop. We are lucky that in his very busy schedule, the Bishop was willing and able to come out to our parish.
Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico on June 1, 1970 to Miguel and Gloria Betancourt. He is the oldest of three children. He joined the Servants of the Eucharist and of the Blessed Virgin Mary on January 1, 1992, and took perpetual vows on August 6, 2000. On April 21, 2001, he was ordained a priest. Bishop Betancourt graduated with a Bachelor of Natural Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico and received a Master of Divinity degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Following ordination, he earned a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2005. From 2005 to 2006, he taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and Regina Cleri Major Seminary. In 2006, then-Father Betancourt was assigned by his order to be the pastor of St. Francis de Sales parish in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
He also served as a professor of sacred scripture at the Saint Paul School of Divinity in St.
Paul, MN and also served as a vice rector of formation and associate academic dean from 2006 until 2018. He taught undergraduate theology at the University of St. Thomas from 2006 through 2009. Bishop Betancourt’s visit to our parish is not only his first time here in West Simsbury but also helps us to begin this year’s Lenten journey into a deeper and more fruitful understanding of God’s plan for our lives both in this world and in the world to come. Please join us for this Lenten event.