Over the weekend of December 13, Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan led a parish’s 125th anniversary celebration: Our Lady of Peace Church in Gowanus marked the milestone with a Mass and dinner. The now Franciscan parish was founded by the Vincentians in 1899, but the Diocese of Brooklyn brought in the Franciscan province of the Immaculate Conception because the order had a large number of Italian friars to help serve the then-Italian community in the neighborhood.

Those friars went on to build the church that stands there today, which is filled with Franciscan symbols. A few years ago the parish renovated the church and the person who helped paint the symbols also helped paint a Marian statue ahead of the anniversary.