Bronx School’s Second-Graders Visit Jesus in Eucharist

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Second-graders at St. Clare of Assisi School in the Bronx who will be receiving their First Communion in April had an early chance to see Jesus in the Eucharist thanks to a very special spiritual guide—Cardinal Dolan.

The cardinal, who was there Feb. 25 to celebrate Mass for the school’s students in the parish church, led a Eucharistic procession around the corner to the Father Vincent Taglienti Center, which he blessed.

The second-graders hurried ahead and were waiting excitedly inside the center’s chapel when the cardinal came in carrying the Eucharist. He gently placed it in the tabernacle where it will permanently remain for Adoration.

“What really makes this school great is the presence of Jesus,” said the cardinal after Mass. “He is very much here in the Eucharist.

“I had the high honor and joy of carrying the Blessed Sacrament over to the chapel,” he said.

Upon entering the chapel, he told the 33 second-graders, as he pointed toward the tabernacle: in the very year of your Holy First Communion, the Blessed Sacrament was brought and kept in that very tabernacle.

“Jesus lives in your heart and soul,” Cardinal Dolan said. “Now he lives here in the Blessed Sacrament.”

The chapel was newly refurbished, as was the entire center, which was once the Convent of the Sisters of the Oblates of the Blessed Trinity. The sisters staffed the school from 1952 through 2003.

The center will now serve as a place of prayer for the 450 St. Clare students and the parish’s 150 religious education students. Religious education is run by Sister Linda Giovanelly, P.V.M.I. The 2,000 registered parish families will also use the new meeting room inside. There are two universal pre-kindergarten classrooms as well as a parenting center for toddlers.

“The center allows us to have more meeting space, it has turned a basically unused convent for over 13 years into productive space,” said Father Robert Aufieri, pastor of St. Clare’s parish.

“More groups wish to form,” he said. Those include a Filipino group in honor of St. Pedro Calungsod and a club for teens.

The center will be “a source of spiritual strength,” Father Aufieri said.

It is named for Father Taglienti, who served as parochial vicar at the parish from 1954 until 1979. He died in 1990 from complications from diabetes. “A lot of parishioners remember him fondly for his work with the youth,” said Theresa Bovino, principal.

Second-grader Maria Marknikovic told CNY, “This is the first time I ever met the cardinal in my life.” She said seeing him place the Eucharist in the tabernacle was “very nice because we are going to get our Communion in the chapel.

“I am very excited to receive my First Communion because it’s the first time I’m going to receive Jesus in my heart.”