Raffle Co-Leaders

The Festival Committee is looking for a couple of people to coordinate the raffle at the Festival this year. It requires skills in organizing, coordinating and bookkeeping. This year the festival will be on Sunday, September 20th.

If you know someone you think would be good at this, or are interested in helping, please contact Deacon David in the parish office.

Blessing Throats at Sacred Heart Preschool

Today is the Feast of St. Blaise.

 

Deacon Krueger stopped by the preschool

 to give our children a special blessing. 

Principal Bob Voboril

One week ago today Fr. Damian and Dcn David were in Wichita for their Stewardship Conference. One of the presenters was Bob Voboril who is their Superintendent of Catholic Schools. From 1980 to 1990 he was our principal.

They presented him with this picture which he is in. His immediate response was, "This was taking in 1983" and he began naming staff members. He visited at length about memories of the school and the parish.It even became part of his presentation.

Deacon David told him, "In 2016 you should come to to celebrate 100 years of the school."

Mr. Voboril responded, "You'll have to invite me."

Because 12 Ain't Enough

We're getting another deacon. On Friday seminarian Matt Capadano will be ordained a transitional deacon and will join us in June, living with Fr. Vogel. In the fall he will return to Mount St. Mary Seminary in Maryland before, God willing, being ordained a priest next summer.

Matt says he is "excited" to spend the summer with us serving as clergy in a "hopefully forgiving parish." He doesn't know quite what Fr. Damian and Dcn. Lauber have planned for him or what to expect, but he is approaching the summer with an open heart and mind.

Before he even knew he was spending the summer with us, he asked Dcn John Norman to vest him at the ordination Mass. Then Dcn. Capadano will be the Deacon of the Altar at then Fr. Norman's First Mass on June 2nd. So we shall get a preview of him before he joins us for the summer.

This means that, for the summer, Deacon Graef won't be our most recently ordained deacon and Deacon Krueger won't be our youngest.

Please do welcome Deacon Capadano when he joins us this summer.

Our Relics

In the Middle Ages, so many churches claimed to have a piece of the True Cross that John Calvin is famously said to have remarked:

"There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it."

In Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion, Charles Rohault de Fleury responded with this 1870 study of these relics. He drew up a catalog of all known relics of the True Cross and measured them. He also calculated the volume of the True Cross as 0.178 cubic meters. So when he put it together, he had only 0.004 cubic meters, leaving a volume of .0174 cubic meters unaccounted for.

Still, when Fr Damian found a relic said to be of the True Cross locked in our library, he was skeptical. Deacon David Krueger offered to check it out. The rest of this blog is in Dcn Krueger's words:

I took the piece to Tom Koley to examine it.

Tom is the owner of Koley's, a family business that has made church metalware and altarware since 1919. I explained that St. Columbkille has this, piece and I'd like to open it up and get a better sense of it.

Tom said, "So you want me to open this?"

"Yes," I replied.

Tom turned it over in his hands as he examined it. Looking up he asked, "So you want me to open it?"

"Yes," I answered.

Tom continued to examine it. Then he looked at me tensely and asked, "So you would like me to open this up?"

"Yes," I replied a third time and wondered if he would continue to ask.

As he popped the back open, Tom sighed and visibly relaxed as he said, "There was no red string." Without explaining that statement, he removed the cotton backing and took out a much smalled container.

He said, this looks much more like it should. While the large container looks very new, the container inside looks much older. He explained that the loop on the top shows that this was originally made to be on a chain and worn around the neck.

As Tom looked at the back he saw "820" stamped on the back. First of all, that means that the holder was made of 820 parts per thousand of sterling silver. Secondly, that tells us that it was made in Europe where that is the standard. (900 parts per thousand is the standard in the United States.)

Tom removed the back of that to show the wax seal and the "red strings."

The wax is sealed by the Cardinal who acknowledged the authenticity of this relic. It also covers some delicate red strings. Because they are delicate, if any of them are broken, the Church would no longer attest that it really is authentic.

I brought the relic to the next Pastoral Council meeting and told them what I had discovered. The Pastoral Council has recommended that this relic of the True Cross, as well as a relic of St. Columbkille, be placed in a display box and installed in the Adoration Chapel. We'll be looking to do that sometime after the parish completes our Source and Summit Campaign.

Preparing the Tabernacle

By gracing Mary as the Immaculate Conception, we understood that God prepared her to be the tabernacle for Christ. As such, today seems like a good time to look at the work for our new tabernacle.

This week Fr. Damian, Fr. Vogel, David Batter, Michelle Grzywa and Deacon David visited John Lajba at his studio where he is working on the doors for the tabernacle. He was working on the clay version. When finished, they will be used to create a mold and then cast into bronze.

The two doors facing the sanctuary will depict a scene from Luke 24:30-31 on Easter Sunday when Cleopas and another disciple recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The inside of the doors will have angels on them so that when the doors are open we will see the angels in adoration. John is basing the angels upon the work of Blessed Fra Angelico. Above Fr. Vogel commented on how well John is capturing the sense of perspective Fra Angelico used and how it matches the perspective of the table on the front.

John worked to capture the sense of surprise, wonder and awe on the faces of the disciples. He has one disciple holding a basket of bread. He was tempted to depict her dropping the basket in surprise, but felt that would distract.

 Above John adjusts Jesus's hair to better suit how Fr. Damian thinks it should look.

The chapel side doors will depict an icon from the book of Kells that may have been written by St. Columbkille. Above our guests see an actual size depiction of that door.

The figure above is what John has suggested as an angel for the inside of the chapel side door. This angel was painted by Blessed Fra Angelico.

There was also a side visit to Lambrecht Glass Studio.

Four of the stained glass windows from the previous church will be in the new chapel. They were just finishing work on the last of those. The windows are in very good shape but they were arched at the top. A few pieces have been added to the tops to make them into rectangles.

The wall of glass that will separate the chapel from the sanctuary is completed and on a pallet ready to be delivered and installed. They took one pane out for a preview of how they look.

Everything is coming along well.

Do Whatever He Tells You

Last week Kaitlyn Maloney (Stewardship & Development Coordinator for the Omaha Archdiocese), Mary Buttell (Director of Stewardship at St. Robert's) and Deacon David attended the Monsignor McGread Conference at the Spiritual Life Center in Wichita, Kansas. The conference was about the Spirituality of Stewardship and how that can be lived.

As you enter the Spiritual Life Center there is a sculpture based on the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2). Bishop Gerber has meditated upon this feast for decades. First is Mary interceding to Jesus on behalf of the wedding couple saying, "There is no wine."

Although Mary is present in scripture from the Annunciation to Pentecost, the last time she is quoted is in John 2:5 when she tells the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."

The servants can then serve wine to the guests.

Then the wedding couple is told,

 "thou hast kept the best wine until now."

"As we are transformed into Christ, as we put on His mind, as we follow Him down the road listening to His word and eating His body and blood, our lives take on a different coloration, emit an enhanced fragrance and an increase in faith... the best wine always yet to come."

Eugene Gerber, Bishop Emeritus of Wichita