Parish mission will focus on ‘A Journey of Hope’

Friday, Sep. 05, 2025

WEST HAVEN — The theological virtue of hope will be the focus of a three-day mission at Saint Mary Parish in West Haven.

Ann O’Donnell, who has been a member of the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata for 43 years, will present “Pilgrims of Hope.” Each night of the mission will have a different topic; these will be “Faith, Charity and Blessed Hope,” “Cultivators of the Seeds of the Gospel” and “We are Pilgrims of Hope.” The titles of the talks are taken from the Jubilee Prayer for the year.

The late Pope Francis declared 2025 as a Jubilee Year of Hope, with the motto “Pilgrims of Hope.” The prayer composed for the year says in part, “May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.”

O’Donnell recently completed a six-year term on the International General Council of the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata. She has spoken at St. Mary Parish in the past, including for a Lenten retreat in 2014, and for a women’s retreat in 2017, said Donna Masek, a parishioner who is organizing the mission.

Masek is a Father Kolbe Volunteer of the Immaculata and a member of the Militia of the Immaculata National Council. 

The upcoming mission at St. Mary’s is one in a series on the theme of Jubilee of Hope that the parish has hosted this year. In February, Father Thomas Czeck, OFM Conv. spoke on “Pilgrims of Hope, Incarnational Theology.” The series will wrap up in December with a presentation by the Dominican sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, Masek said.

During the mission, O’Donnell and a companion will speak for an hour. This will be followed by a half hour of Eucharistic Adoration, for which reflection questions will be provided.

O’Donnell has no suggestions for what those who attend may take away from the presentations. “I don’t want to get in God’s way, so he can do whatever he wants. And he always does,” she said.

Her past trips to Utah have taught her that “people carry a lot of wounds, a lot of them, and some of them have been hidden deeply for years and years. And sometimes in these [missions] they are able to open up to that grace of facing it, even saying it out loud, and find healing for the first time.”

She would like to focus on a message of hope that might bring some light into people’s lives, she said. “If we only look at the darkness we can get lost in it,” adding that, with all the violence in the world today, “there’s something wrong, and we need to address it with hope.”

The presentations are meant to give people some tools to live in hope, she said. “Especially during the Adoration they will have time to bring to [God] their desires, their own dreams and their own emptiness or wounds. I’ll let him heal them.”

Masek encourages people to attend the mission; it is open to all. They will learn more about the theological virtue of hope, and they can also “continue the celebration, personally and as a parish community and as the Church as a whole, the celebration of our hope in the Incarnation,” she said. 

It’s important to stay focused on the virtue of hope, “especially when we see so many things happening in our world at this time, that we should never lose hope,” she said. 

WHAT: Parish mission: “A Journey of Hope”

WHEN: Monday – Wednesday Sept. 15-17, 7-8:30 p.m. nightly

WHERE: Saint Mary Catholic Church, 4050 South 3900 West, West Haven

Free and open to the public. For information, email miutah.stmary@gmail.com