A dedication and blessing ceremony was conducted Saturday, June 7, for St Rose of Lima’s latest building, the Holy Innocents Faith Formation Center.

The Most Reverend Frank J. Caggiano, bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, presided over the blessing and dedication ceremony.

Construction of the building began last summer. As Monsignor Robert Weiss explained during the event, there were multiple construction projects running simultaneously at St Rose of Lima in the last year and a half, including work on security projects for St Rose of Lima School, the addition of a rectory office, the renovation of the rectory, and the work on the new Holy Innocents Faith Formation Center on the west side of the St Rose of Lima campus.

Msgr Weiss thanked all who helped the Holy Innocents Faith Formation Center come to fruition, including an anonymous benefactor, and all who helped in the construction and decoration of the facility.

The whole building is powered by solar energy, he added.

“You’re enjoying the lights and air conditioning today because God created the sun, and we’re using that energy for us,” said Msgr Weiss.

He also noted that the building will provide an area for special needs children.

“As you know, we have a great affection for special needs children in this parish community,” Msgr  Weiss said, adding there are also a number of children in the parish community with special needs. “It was our hope that if they had a building where they would feel comfortable, where they would be safe, where they would have easy access, that we would be able to bring these children to Christ.”

The building will additionally provide new reasons for coming together, Msgr Weiss said, which will help provide healing in a community still coming together in the wake of a tragedy.

“It’s our great hope that this building will be able to provide that opportunity for this community and for all who enter our doors,” he said.

The name Holy Innocents Faith Formation Center, the monsignor explained, honors all children who lost their lives, and “reminds us that here there is hope, there here there is blessing. In the midst of so much darkness that here there is light. And I hope that all who come here will continue to reflect that light, because we need it.”

Bishop Caggiano noted that the first gathering in the building celebrated light, life, faith, hope, joy, “and the promise the Lord gives us that the light will always come through the darkness.”