Help and Healing This Weekend at St. John's Church

This will be a full weekend at in Swampscott, with several events scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

Church Deacon said this weekend will be very busy at the church, with events to help others and to help heal on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

“We will be planting a tree on Sunday, a tree of peace, dedicated to the memory of, who was killed on September, 11, 2001,” Acampora said.

Jalbert, a longtime member of the Swampscott community and a daily communicant at St. John’s, will have a flowering dogwood tree dedicated to him after an outdoor mass at St. John’s on Sunday. The actual planting of the Peace Tree will begin on Monday.

“We will have a tent erected, and an outdoor mass on Sunday,” Acampora said. “Last year we had over 400 people attending the outdoor mass, and we expect more than that this Sunday, since it's the tenth anniversary of 9/11.”

The tree and the area adjacent to the parking lot will be blessed on Sunday; the actual planting will begin on Monday, according to Acampora. Jalbert’s wife Kathy will be in New York on Sunday for 9/11 remembrances there, family representatives, including one of his children will be at St. John’s on Sunday.

“This is a special dedication to Bob,” Acampora said. “But we also want to recognize everyone who was affected by the tragedy that took place ten years ago.”

“Bob was a Eucharistic Minister (an extraordinary minister of the Holy Communion) and was very active at St. John’s,” Acampora said. “We also want to recognize all the other families who were impacted by the events of 9/11, directly or indirectly, and planting the peace tree is a wonderful opportunity to do that.”

The outdoor Mass begins Sunday at 11 a.m., followed by the peace tree dedication and a cookout. Collections will be held this week and next week to help defray the costs of the cookout and dedication.

On Saturday, parishioners will be donning comfortable shoes to participate in the Walk-A-Thon for Haiti, to help Haitians after the devastating earthquake that struck 25 miles outside of Port-au-Prince in January of 2010.

“We’ll have Mass on Saturday morning at 8:30, and then the walk will take place, our walkers will head towards Nahant and circle the rotary there and come back to St. John’s,” Acampora said.

Walkers will cover just over three miles on Saturday.

St. John’s has designated the St. Catherine’s School in Haiti to be the main beneficiary of the proceeds from the walk-a-thon, in addition to other relief organizations.

“We’ve chosen St. Catherine’s as our sister parish, but we are also allocating funds to other relief organizations to help the people of Haiti,” Acampora said. “If people can't walk Saturday, they can still make a donation through the church.”

“Father Rafferty and I, and others in the church, decided to run these events together, to appeal to as many people as possible,” Acampora said. “They used to be separate events and we decided to put them together as a weekend event to get more people involved.”

“We wanted to appeal to as many members of the church community, and the community as a whole as we could,” Acampora said. “We wanted this weekend to be all inclusive to have this really be an event for everyone in the community.”

The events begin at St. John’s with a mass at 8:30 on Saturday morning, followed by the walk-a-thon for Haiti. The outdoor Mass on Sunday begins at 11 a.m., followed by the blessing of the peace tree in memory of Robert Jalbert and a cookout in the church parking lot.

"We are all looking forward to this weekend, the response has been wonderful and we are delighted with the large number of people who have volunteered to help us this weekend."