April 8, 2020

By Deacon Kevin Mastellon
Contributing Writer

Chaumont – Nick Lapointe has been taking his love of Christ both overseas and to New York City.

Lapointe spent last semester in Austria. It was a study abroad experience for the sophomore at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

While in Europe, the 19-year old Immaculate Heart Central graduate visited many other countries and sites.
“Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina was my favorite of the Marian apparition sites,” Lapointe said. “Lourdes and Fatima are wonderful too; I love them both so much.”

When he returned to school, Lapointe was approached by a friend who suggested he join a mission trip being organized at the school for March 2020. The mission was to be to the Bronx, one of the five boroughs (counties) that make up New York City. Although reluctant to make another trip so soon after Europe, the Chaumont resident agreed and signed up. The trip proved to be “incredible.”

“We encountered so much brokenness,” he said. “People on the subways did not want to even look at you when you tried to talk to them. But there was also so much goodness.”

Prior to leaving, he spoke to parishioners in Watertown about his pending mission trip with 22 other Franciscan University students and faculty.

“Our purpose is to truly encounter the poverty of the homeless and forgotten people we find in the Bronx and share with them the joy and love of Christ, even in a few minutes, as so many are ignored and treated as barely being human in that massive city,” Lapointe said.

The parishioners from St. Anthony’s and St. Patrick’s supported Lapointe’s trip financially and in prayer.

The Franciscan University missionaries lived with the Franciscans at Our Lady of Angels Friary on 155th Street in South Bronx. South Bronx is in the southwest corner of the borough; across the Harlem River from the section of Manhattan that bears the same name, Harlem. South Bronx contains the poorest congressional district in the United States (NY-16) with a median household income of $19,311. By comparison the national median household income is just shy of $58,000. The North Country congressional district (NY-21) median household income is $56,487. (Source, US Census Bureau).

Ask an internet search engine (we used Google) if the South Bronx is dangerous. The answer was “Yes”.

This is where Lapointe and the cohort from Franciscan University went to work for a week in March 2020. March 7 to 14 to be precise. Just at the start of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in New York City.

The missionaries worked with the Franciscans, the Sisters of Life and the Missionaries of Charity. Their work took them to the New York boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, too, but highlights for Lapointe were the two retreats they offered in the Bronx, one for sixth and seventh graders, the other for eighth graders in local Catholic schools.

“There was so much desire for church,” Lapointe said. “A lot of those kids have a very difficult time at home. We talked to them about identity; being a child of God. And we talked with them about seeing God as their father. So many of the kids only have one parent home at a time. We asked them to look at God as their all loving, perfect father.”

The third topic for their retreats encouraged the students to be men and women of Christ, adopting His teaching as their own.

“The kids were pretty receptive to our message,” he said. “The questions they asked were insightful. There was nothing superficial about them.”

“Being able to affirm Christ was such a fulfilling experience,” Lapointe addded. “It was so life giving to be able to confirm that truth to other people.”

New York City quickly became the center of coronavirus in the United States. The group from Franciscan University left the Bronx before the imposition of controls but the fear had already started to spread. Just a few days before they left, Lapointe said they ventured to a chain supermarket near the Friary. They managed to purchase everything they needed for the remainder of the trip.

“The next day, we heard, the store had been wiped out,” Lapointe said.

The tension was starting to build.

Because of the virus, Lapointe is not likely to be back on campus until fall. He is continuing his studies on-line. This will not be the last we hear of Lapointe’s travels. The next adventure for this young man is this summer.
“I am going to be counselor at a Catholic Youth Camp in Colorado,” he said.