A family-friendly Chinese New Year block party will take place Feb. 25 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on 18th Street in Metairie to celebrate the Chinese “Year of the Dog” in the lunar calendar.

There is no city where the juxtaposition of Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday has greater spiritual meaning than in New Orleans. In a very Catholic way, Rex reigned over the city on Mardi Gras, Feb. 13, giving a nod to the 300-year-old city’s Catholic roots.

One hundred eighty women and men religious attended a “Celebration of Consecrated Life” Feb. 17 at the Academy of the Sacred Heart Chapel. The prayer service was highlighted by a 10-minute reflection by Religious of the Sacred Heart Sister Juliet Mousseau, 39, below, a professor of church history at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A variety of resources to help Catholics observe Lent is available through the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website: www.usccb.org/lent. The theme of this year’s Lenten resources is “Raise Up, Sacrifice, Offer,”which includes daily suggestions for reading, reflection, prayer and action.

Loyola University New Orleans hosted the one-day, Louisiana Journalism Education Association (JEA) Conference and annual Tom Bell Silver Scribe Contest Feb. 1. “The conference is designed as an opportunity for high school students to build professional skills and begin envisioning a possible future in journalism and communications,” said Albert Dupont, Louisiana JEA president and instructor in the Loyola School of Mass Communication.

Two small flecks of red. When I knelt down to genuflect on the outside of my pew, they immediately stood out. Gingerly, I reached for them and picked them up. Rose petals. Just as I suspected. My husband was astonished that I had even seen them. But I had been meant to find them. It was my sign – the sign that prayers would be answered.

It’s the price every homeowner in South Louisiana must eventually pay: re-armoring structures assaulted by scorching summers, heavy rains and winters that can feel as cold as Minnesota one day and swampy the next. That time has arrived for Spanish Renaissance-style St. Joseph Church and its 99-foot-high bell tower, which rises majestically over the streets of Old Gretna.

At the Louisiana FIRST® Technical Challenge (FTC) regional championship Feb. 3 at the University of New Orleans, St. Mary’s Dominican High School registered two teams to compete. Dominican’s “Indiana Janes” team was a finalist for the Think Award. The Dominican “Valkyries” won the Motivate Award and placed eighth for the Alliance section and were selected to play in the semifinals.

The CYO/Youth and Young Adult Ministry’s Young Adult Council is collecting donations for its monthly service project in February to benefit the Free Indeed Safe House on the northshore, that helps human trafficking victims.

For many in New Orleans East living near Chef Menteur Highway, Feb. 7, 2017, is a date remembered alongside Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005. Feb. 7 is when an EF-3 tornado ripped off roofs and tore down the walls of homes, rendering many families homeless for the second time in 11 years.

During his nearly half-century as a Catholic high school music teacher, disciplinarian and elementary school principal, Bobby Ohler stressed teamwork and rowing in the same direction, a harmonic convergence that characterized his vocation as an educator and his after-hours avocation as a cornet player, in, as Frank Sinatra would plaintively sing, “the wee, small hours of the morning.”

The city of New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras Feb. 13 with a nod to the 300-year-old city’s Catholic roots. Five floats in Rex, which has been parading since 1872, had Catholic themes, including:

Catholic churches in the Central Business District of the Archdiocese of New Orleans will celebrate Ash Wednesday, Feb. 14, and Lenten Masses as follows: St. Louis Cathedral will offer Masses at 12:05 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Ash Wednesday, with ashes distributed at both Masses following the homily. Archbishop Gregory Aymond will preside at the 12:05 p.m. Mass.

Jeff Ramon, New Orleans chapter president of the Young Catholic Professionals (YCP), welcomed nearly 200 attendees at YCP’s first anniversary party Jan. 24 at The Cannery, sponsored by The Catholic Foundation. The New Orleans chapter was launched in January 2017 and hosts regular events for young adults that include a speaker series and happy hour.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond blessed the new, free-standing chapel at St. Charles Catholic High School in LaPlace on Jan. 30. “There’s been a lot of upgrading of the facilities – new rooms, a new belltower and a new chapel – so are you pleased with those?” the archbishop asked to applause.

ALL SAINTS, Feb. 14, 16, 23, March 2, 9, 16, 23. Fried fish, eggplant casserole, stuffed crab with macaroni and cheese or French fries, potato salad or green salad, vegetables, dessert. $8; fried fish and eggplant casserole or fried fish and stuffed crab with same sides, $12.  Eat-in or take-out service. Call-in orders begin at 10 a.m. 300 Ptolemy St., Algiers. 368-0335.

The 2017 “pink” volleyball games at Catholic high schools and colleges throughout the Archdiocese of New Orleans helped raise $41,234 for the Tulane Cancer Center’s Patient Relief Fund, which provides assistance for cancer patients facing financial burdens that could become barriers to their care.

Through Cabrini High School’s Service Learning programs, the eighth-grade theology classes partnered with St. Michael Special School Jan. 16 on campus for a day of service, learning and fun, sponsored by The Joe W. and Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation.

The Christian Life Center at St. Joseph Abbey in St. Benedict is situated on some of the highest land of the 1,200-acre Benedictine monastery and seminary college. But in March 2016, that pride of perch still was no match for the massive flooding that swept through the abbey campus, sending water into 30 buildings.

Eloise Blandin Simmons was described as an example of faith and friendship at her Mass of Christian burial Jan. 31 at Corpus Christi, her childhood church. Dr. Norman Francis, former president of Xavier University of Louisiana, thanked God for living long enough to speak about Simmons, his former assistant and friend, who died Jan. 24 at age 97.