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Christ the King parish of Jersey City, New Jersey affectionately called her "the Deaconess". Just like Phoebe, she was on the road with Christ; teaching supporting, imploring, beseeching, and carrying Christ to all who would receive Him. Rita served as the director for Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults. She carried Christ to the sick and the infirmed as a Eucharistic Minister. She prepared other lay ministers to be Extraordinary Ministers of Communion. She instructed couples in Pre-Cana for the preparation of the sacrament of Matrimony, setting the example for sacramental marriage by the witness of her forty-one years as a devoted and virtuous wife to Deacon Keith. Rita studied with, supported and stood beside her spouse Keith in his preparation as an ordained minister of the Permanent Deaconate of the Catholic Church. Rita was always faithful to the ministry and to the mission of Jesus through the Deaconate and through her service to the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus. She was authentically Black and truly Catholic as proven by her witness in faith and her encouragement. She challenged the Black Catholics of the Archdiocese of Newark to get involved in the National Black Catholic Congress. She was the fire that set our souls ablaze and propelled our participation not only in the National Black Catholic Congress but as well in the annual parishing workshops for ministry in the African American Community. She was the impetus in the youth participating in the Rites of Passage in 2000 and 2001. Rita was the coordinator for the New Jersey Gathering of Black Catholic Women that was held at Seton Hall University: A call for the women to gather in prayer and praise. Rita was always there for those who were sick and in need of the Presbyter and prayer and anointing. She was an evangelist preparing the way of the Lord. She was an evangelist carrying the message that help was on the way for those in need of help and that the help was Jesus. The calls of condolences have come from near and from far, Europe, Mexico, all across the United States, Canada and from Africa and Asia. A universal response for one whose mission was universal for that is what it means to be truly Catholic. Rita was Catholic in every sense of her being. She was not what I call a supermarket Catholic like those who pick and chose which teachings of the church they will put into their shopping cart and which teachings and beliefs they will leave on the shelf. My sister in Christ took on the full mantle of the One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church; the First Christian Church of Jesus Christ and she was not ashamed to preach and teach the authentic unadulterated scripture of Jesus Christ! It was like a fire burning in her bones! She could not help but to believe, to preach and to teach. Her love was Jesus and He was the center of her Life. Everything she did was through him, with him and in him. She was a witness for Jesus Christ! |
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