My Dear Friends,
ONE MORE WEEK! Our long summer of refurbishment in the church is finally (almost) over, and next week when you arrive for Sunday Mass, you will be able to walk into our glorious church for the first time since June 8th. It will be worth the wait. Freshly painted walls, a restored sanctuary, shined marble and tiled floors, a reinforced balcony, patched up water damage, and brand new all-wood pews with comfortable kneelers. There are a great many subtle things that were done that I will leave to your discerning eye, but our hope is that we have restored our church to the splendor it had when it was first opened in the early 1950’s to have her ready to celebrate our Centennial.
The church officially reopens on Saturday morning, November 1st, the Solemnity of All Saints’, which is not a Holy Day of Obligation this year. Nevertheless, we will have a solemn Mass at 8:00 a.m. to open the church and bless the new pews. The church has basically been a construction area for nearly five months with workers laboring long hours to have our worship space ready this week, so a simple blessing is in order. Father David and I will bless the church with Holy Water at 7:30 a.m. and do an order of blessing of the pews, and the Blessed Sacrament will reenter the church once the blessing is done. All of this will happen in the half hour before the 8:00 a.m. Mass begins. All are welcome to participate in this simple rite of blessing at 7:30 a.m. before Mass begins so you can be among the first parishioners to see our refurbished church. The Archbishop will offer a more formal blessing once all the work is completed and the organ is fully installed next year. While we re-renter the church this coming week, there is still some work to be done, especially on the balcony to prepare it for the new organ’s arrival in February.
I can’t thank all of you enough for the patience you had this summer while we were displaced from the church for this necessary work to be done. We are blessed that we had a space like our old church to celebrate Mass this summer which was made to feel like home by an inspiring group of ladies that transformed the stage into a sanctuary for Holy Mass. I extend my gratitude to our staff who went above and beyond this summer to work with all the workers who labored tirelessly in the church. Sometime next month, I will go into more detail over the large scope of work that was miraculously done over this short time. I use that word miracle purposely because the hand of God was truly with us. Everything had to go just right, and everyone had to move in the same direction, and your parish staff broke their backs to make sure the church was ready for November 1st.
One final word as we return to the most beautiful church in the archdiocese: patience. The acoustics of the church were improved and it may take some time to get the sound system perfectly calibrated, which we cannot do until we have the church filled with people. Also, as I mentioned above, the balcony and other small corners of the church still need to be worked on, so the church for the time being will only be opened during Mass times on weekdays, and unfortunately won’t be open for private prayer time that we are so used to. The church will be closed from 8:45 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. I ask that you please go to the St. Joseph’s Adoration Chapel across the street where our Lord is always waiting for us to pray. Please offer a prayer of thanksgiving for all the workers who skillfully painted, built, patched up, cleaned, refurbished, and lovingly restored our church for us in time for our 100th birthday. I can’t wait to open the doors for all of you, so that we may offer a worthy sacrifice of thanksgiving when we celebrate Mass in our church next weekend.
God bless you all,
