September 27, 2015

We experienced a historic event this week. Pope Francis has made his first pastoral visit to the United States. While there are many elements to the visit, the primary reason for coming was to attend the World Meeting of Families being held in Philadelphia. The theme for the meeting is “Love is our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.”We were blessed to have a beautiful holy hour this past week on Tuesday to celebrate the Holy Father’s arrival. The greatest way we can thank the Pope for his visit to the United States is to continue to strengthen our own families. There are so many crosses that families must face in our modern culture, it is deeply consoling to be strengthened by our Holy Father to live more deeply our calling to love as a family. I would encourage you to reflect upon his homilies/writings from his visit to the United States. I am fairly certain if you were to “Google” the Pope’s visit, you’d be able to find the various talks.

On a separate note, we continue to make progress on our new spiritual home. This past week, progress was made on the kneelers for the center pews and trim work for the outer doors. I was heartened to hear that over a dozen people were at Deacon Kuchar’s shop on Monday working on sanding, etc. That help is greatly appreciated and will help us continue to move forward. At this time, we are simultaneously working on two separate areas. The first is the preparation, assembly and installation of the pews and the second is the preparation and installation of the trim. The following list is the planned order of rollout of the various items still to be completed in each area. As always, it may be subject to change depending on circumstances.

Pew assembly order:

1. Install kneelers and hymnal holders in center bank of pews.

2. Assemble and install the “Bishop’s pews” – the first two pews of the center aisle.

3. Assemble and install the side aisle pews.

4. Install kneelers and hymnal holders in side aisle pews.

5. Install adoration chapel pews.

6. Assemble and install the cry room pews.

7. Assemble and install the sanctuary pews.

Trim installation order:

1. Front Exterior Door trim.

2. Sanctuary column base trim.

3. Side aisle column capital and base trim.

4. Sanctuary Baseboard trim.

5. Rose window and upper main door curved trim.

6. Adoration chapel grill trim.

7. Narthex and nave door/window trim.

8. Adoration chapel door/window trim

9. Votive candle holders and side door holy water fonts.

10. Kneeler/seat/screen of confessionals.

11. Adoration chapel baseboard.

12. Complete choir loft side railing and install granite railing top.

13. Side Aisle window bottom jam.

14. Baseboard trim in nave and narthex.

15. Social Hall cabinets/countertop.

16. Sacristy cabinets/countertop.

17. Solid marble communion rail.

18. Social Hall window trim.

19. Social Hall baseboard trim.

20. Hallway door trim and baseboard trim.

21. Choir loft baseboard trim.

22. Stair well window jams, window trim and baseboard.