Two weeks before Easter, it wasn’t the return of Jesus this parish was looking for.

But after a mysterious package that showed up at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Hoboken, New Jersey, turned out to contain a statue that was stolen from a Nativity scene outside the church nine decades ago, the Rev. Alex Santora is doing the only thing a Christian can under the circumstances:

He’s counting his blessings.

In a feel-good story that’s generated coverage on local television stations and been picked up by The Associated Press and The Christian Post, the world is learning how a sin committed generations ago can be redeemed by a person determined to make things right.

It happened on Wednesday, when Santora received a package at the church that made him suspicious at first.

There was no return address on the parcel, and it appeared to have been wrapped somewhat amateurishly, Santora told NBC 4.

So, considering the times, when even churches have been the targets of the politically motivated or emotionally disturbed, he did what any cautious person would do.

He went to the authorities.

“The post office said, ‘It’s just from Crystal Springs, Florida, no name,’” Santora told the station. “I was still more concerned. So … I called the police.”

Check out coverage of the story on ABC7 here.

The Hoboken Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit checked the package out, determined it didn’t have a bomb inside, then opened it up, Santora said.

What they found inside contained some answers.

Amid a welter of packaging paper there was a statue of a baby Jesus and a typewritten letter from whoever had sent it:

“To Whom it may concern, My mom told me that the Baby Jesus had been stolen from the church Nativity display at Our Lady of Grace when she was a young girl of about 12 years of age in the early 1930s.

“It came into her father’s possession somehow, and I don’t know why he didn’t return it. Instead, he gave it to my mother after she was married, and she, too, kept it until her passing when it came to me. Knowing the story, I felt it should be returned to the rightful owner, and you will find it enclosed.”

The history of Our Lady of Grace goes back to its founding in 1871, according to the parish website. That was a time when Catholic immigrants from Europe were pouring into the United States, many through via New York City, just across the Hudson River from Hoboken.

The disappearance of a Jesus figurine from a Nativity scene around 1930 must have been quite a mystery at the church decades ago.

So, one mystery might have been solved, but it’s raising a lot of new questions too. Who was it who stole the statue so long ago? How had it been kept in relatively pristine condition for so long?

How many family gatherings had the statue seen between Hoboken, New Jersey, and a small town in Florida an hour from the Gulf of Mexico?

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Parishioners at Our Lady of Grace might be wondering all of that, but they’re really just glad to get the statue back.

And the lesson it’s carrying is a perfect on for the Christian world as it approaches the greatest, most meaningful holiday of all.

“I guess we have to have faith in humanity after all,” parishioner Arlene Ricciardi told NBC 4.

And maybe faith in something much greater, too.

“As Christians we say that no matter what you have done, you can be forgiven,” he told the station. “Clearly, though I don’t know who sent it, in my heart they are forgiven because they did the right thing.”

And just in time for the coming of Easter.

What does this story tell you about religious faith? Scroll down to comment below!

It pays to advertise.

A New York City woman who was victimized by a bike thief in early March decided to publicize the loss with a large sign on the front of her Brooklyn brownstone rental.

And got a lot more than she bargained for in return.

Describing about the experience in a piece published by The Washington Post on Friday, Amanda Needham said she never expected to get anything out of the effort.

But even if it didn’t get her $200 bike back, it might serve a purpose for someone else.

“I felt a little foolish writing the sign,” she wrote. “After all, if my husband and I had spent nearly as much time double securing my bicycle as I did writing the sign, I might not be in the situation. But I knew other people’s bicycles had been stolen in the neighborhood, and the least I could do was acknowledge what had happened. I left it up for seven days.”

It was a week that changed her view of humanity.

The first people to respond were two young black men carrying a mountain bike “fit for a teen,” Needham wrote.

She tried to decline their offer to give her the bike, but eventually relented. It wasn’t exactly what she could use, but that wasn’t the issue.

“(I)t wasn’t about the bicycle, it was about their desire to help,” she wrote. “I accepted, touched by the humanity of the gesture.”

The next to respond was a middle-aged Hispanic woman, Needham wrote. The woman didn’t have a bike handy, but did offer to help. It really is the thought that counts.

“This sign was changing things,” Needham wrote. “So much decency was pouring out from such a simple gesture of opening myself up to the universe.”

It was about to get better. Needham’s final respondent was an “energetic, salt-and-pepper haired white guy.”

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He didn’t have a bike with him either, but he did describe himself as an art dealer who thought her sign could be worth something on the open market, and was working on Instagram with an antiques dealer in Britain who thought the same.

Small world, isn’t it?

The dealer’s name was Stephen Powers, and he’d posted a photo of Neeham’s sign on Instagram.

Coincidentally, Powers thought the sign might be worth $200 to Needham. She accepted the offer, which basically put her right as far as the loss of the bike went. But there was more to it than that.

“First of all, I had $200 in cash that I actually needed if I’d ever be able to afford a new bicycle,” she wrote. “But I was also part of a wave of goodness that felt beautiful and real and inspiring. I realized I didn’t want it to just stop with me.”

She took the bike the bike the two men had given her to a neighborhood mechanic, with the idea of fixing it up and getting it to someone else who needed it, hoping that one good deed would be repaid with another. (Good deeds have a way of coming back to the doer.)

So it’s a nice neighborhood story about loss and recovery, populated by a cast of characters diverse enough to make up a Benneton ad. While the bike thief seems to have gotten away with it (and no one likes a bike thief), it even has a happy ending. (It could be a very happy ending for that art dealer and his British business partner, if someone decides Needham’s primitive art work is worth a good deal more than $200.)

And even though it has plenty of modern touches — like an international Instagram angle — the lesson is as timeless as the cave paintings of southern France and the petroglyphs of southern Utah.

It pays to advertise.

What kind of response did you think this woman would get to her sign? Scroll down to comment below!

A United Kingdom board of health launched guidelines on how physicians and caregivers should treat elderly transgender people with dementia because they are a “vulnerable” group.

Transgender elderly allegedly face more suffering and confusion than cisgender elderly persons.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board crafted policy for elderly transgender people, offering advice on how to help transgender individuals with dementia keep up their desired appearance when they’re no longer able to do so themselves.

The policy also directs caregivers to aid them in remembering the individual’s chosen identity, given they might become confused as to why they are wearing clothes or cosmetics that are not traditional for their biological sex.

Transgender individual Jenny Burgess, 66, helped craft the policy.

Transgender people with dementia “may wake up one day and they’ll be confused why they’re dressed in a certain way,” he said, according to the BBC.

“They may worry why certain parts are missing from their anatomy. So it’s these sort of things that I’d like staff to be aware of. There’s no simple answer … but it really is a worrying scenario,” he said.

“As dementia progresses a person may not recall their current gender and they may see themselves being pre-transition and be surprised at the physical changes to their bodies,” BCUHB dementia nurse Sean Page said, the BBC reported.

“This can result in them becoming very disorientated and anxious. They may not understand why they are being referred to as being a certain gender as they cannot recall publicly voicing this preference.”

The health board’s Vice Chairman Margaret Hanson asserted the new guidelines are critical to supporting a “unique, but vulnerable, group of older citizens.”

The policy guidelines come after Britain’s largest all-girl youth organization, Girlguiding U.K., changed a rule in November 2017 to allow children who identify as female to share showers, bathrooms, changing rooms and tents with girls who are biologically born female, according to The Times.

Medical research shows 80 to 95 percent of children outgrow their gender dysphoria naturally and accept their biological sex if nature takes its course.

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Top studies also show no mental improvement after gender-reassignment surgery and indicate people who successfully transitioned suffered 20 times the suicide rate of their peers and also suffered lifelong mental health issues.

There hasn’t been a single long-term randomized study on the effects of hormone-blocking treatments on children.

Moreover, no laws currently govern or regulate hormone-blocker usage.

A version of this article previously appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website. 

What are your thoughts on this special amendment? Scroll down to comment below!

The head of a coalition of black pastors says Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) must end their “partisan hypocrisy” and denounce “leftist hate speech” such as that proclaimed by anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

In a press release sent to Breitbart News, Rev. William Owens, president of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) refers to Farrakhan’s statement in a recent speech: “White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”

Owens observes Waters was among those present at Farrakhan’s speech.

“Rep. Waters’ refusal to speak out against Farrakhan and other extremist hate speech is the perfect example of the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of the Congressional Black Caucus,” Owens says. “Rep. Waters lives in a multi-million dollar home, a stark contrast to the poor district she represents. She manipulates African American voters for her own gain. And she’s just one of many black leaders who have sold out our values.”

https://t.co/6ltnDeROWI

— Rev. William Owens (@caapusa) February 15, 2018

In February, Waters appeared on a BET special program that focused on President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address – though Waters herself did not attend the event as a protest against the president. She said, nevertheless, that Trump is a “racist.”

“One speech cannot and does not make Donald Trump presidential,” she said. “He’s not presidential, and he never will be presidential. He claims that’s bringing people together but make no mistake, he is a dangerous, unprincipled, divisive, and shameful racist.”

Additionally, in January, a photograph of then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Farrakhan taken in 2005 at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus was released after a 13-year cover-up to protect Obama’s political career.

Owens joined civil rights educator Dr. Alveda King and other black leaders in February to publicly rebuke the CBC as a “disgrace” and “traitors” to black Americans. The leaders accused CBC members of engaging in “childish” behavior during the State of the Union address, with their “sulking in their seats, texting, pretending to be disinterested.”

“Without question, the CBC’s foul demeanor has been a just cause to demand either ‘REPRESENT or GO AWAY,’” Owens said at the time. “I make a strong plea to the black community to embrace this position with openness and hear us out; we have been sidelined by traitors in Washington and must engage.”

Owens and his group have launched a petition to hold the CBC accountable to the “values and needs of the African American community.” The petition further says many “so-called ‘civil rights leaders’ have lost touch with the moral values of mainstream African Americans.”

“We’ve watched for years as Democratic politicians offered African Americans platitudes and promises in exchange for political loyalty,” Owens asserts, adding:

In the meantime, Democratic policies reduced our inner cities to crumbling, crime-ridden, economic wastelands. And yet, we are supposed to continue on, not questioning the policies or politicians that brought us to this point? African American voters have had enough of the double standards and hypocrisy. There is a great hunger for moral leadership in this country. If the Congressional Black Caucus does not step up to meet that demand, they will find themselves in need of new jobs.

“Politicians like Maxine Waters need to step up or go home,” Owens says. “We’ve had enough of their partisan games. They’re stooges of a party that enriches them, but does nothing to help the African American community.”