A Jesuit-trained team will offer the 30-week prayer experience held in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola in the St. Peter Church lower hall from 7-8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays from Sept. 30 through May 5.

When John Kottori realized that his daughter and other girls in Webster had no opportunity to play organized basketball in town, he bounced into action.

WORCESTER – From Mass, to eucharistic adoration, to Marian devotion, to an evangelization table and religious items for sale, the Italian Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Our Lady of Loreto Parish was focused on faith – and brought the parish community and others together for a weekend also filled with family, food, fun and fundraising for the parish.

“I thirst for the salvation of souls” is the theme of the upcoming Worcester Catholic Women’s Conference which is scheduled for Sept. 27 at St. Joseph School in Webster.

The pilgrimage commemorated the 80th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and one on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, during the Second World War.

To get there, he said, he rose at 3 a.m., traveled three hours by truck, then walked for another hour and a half. About 200 people attended that Mass last year, sitting on the floor of a school room or standing outside, he said.

Two longtime volunteers received Leominster’s Citizen of the Year Award Saturday. While the award focused on the volunteers’ service to the city, one is also known for serving her parish, and the other is connected with a parish out of town.

Rome became the heart of the world’s Catholic youth during the Jubilee of Youth held July 28-Aug. 3 which brought together more than one million young people from the five continents and about 146 countries.

SPENCER – The Trappist monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey live a contemplative life of prayer and work – and they have been doing so for 200 years – 75 of those years in the town of Spencer.

Worcester Catholics are among those calling for nuclear disarmament through commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the United States atomic bombings in Japan – in Hiroshima Aug. 6 and Nagasaki Aug. 9.

These extraordinary things happen when “babies turn into children of God” and the bread and wine turn into Christ’s body and blood, when couples turn into spouses and sinners into saints. “Such exceptional things deserve an exceptional place. And, St. Anne’s ... is truly an exceptional place.”

For 50 years, the Steubenville Conferences have been forming teens in the faith and deepening adults’ faith journeys. The Worcester diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry brought 99 youth and chaperones to the conference in Ohio this year.

Father Thomas F. Egan, 82, of Worcester, former pastor of Holy Family of Nazareth Church in Leominster, died July 18 after a brief illness.

“They understand the spirit and mission. … It’s strengthening families … really living out the social teachings of the Church … treating each person with dignity and respect, calling them by name, recognizing that we’re all one, and mutually helping each other to grow and become a family.”

WORCESTER – Hearkening back to the past, though things aren’t the same as they used to be, Blessed Sacrament Parish held a summer get-together Saturday – in and outside the church.

Father Thomas H. Hultquist, 76, senior priest in residence at St. George Parish in Worcester, passed away July 12 at Notre Dame Healthcare in Worcester.

As of July 9, the annual campaign had received 9,435 gifts worth $3,819,619, about 76 percent of the goal. As of the same date last year, Partners in Charity had received 10,205 gifts worth $4,005,110, about 80 percent of the goal. So the campaign is down 874 gifts and $221,141 from this time a year ago.

Bishop McManus blessed a new columbarium at St. Mary of the Hills Parish in West Boylston, at an outdoor Mass on June 21. The granite wall with 40 niches for cremated remains is across the driveway from the church, where the St. Therese of Lisieux shrine had been.