Ascension Thursday in just 2 days

Thursday is a Holy Day that, as Fr Damian says, sneeks up on us because the date changes with Easter each year. The stained glass windows in our chapel (pictured above) remind of us of when Jesus, before he ascended, spoke the words which are the basis of our parish mission statement, "Go and Make Disciples."

There is an anticipatory Mass tomorrow night at 5:30 to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus to heaven. The Masses Thursday for this Holy Day are:

6:20 a.m.

8:15 a.m.

12:10 p.m.

5:30 p.m.

7:00 p.m.

St. Joseph the Worker

When Pope Pius XII declared today to be the Feast of St. Joseph the worker, he said:

“The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work. Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again today repeat, ‘Go to Joseph.’”

One of the stained glass windows in our clerestory is called "The Influence of Joseph." It reminds of how Joseph and his work influenced Jesus.

Stained Glass at Night

Here's how the stained glass windows look at night.

Installing the Old Stained Glass

Our second church, built in 1923, had a lot of stained glass windows. Before that church was torn down, Don Schram led a group of parishioners who crated those windows for storage.

After 30 years in the basement, they were cleaned up 

Now it's time to install two of those sets (four windows) in the new chapel.

The two panels to the right are of Jesus, with His disciples, beginning his ascension as he gives our parish mission statement, "Go and Make Disciples."

The two to the left are of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Meanwhile the angel is there with the "cup."

The snow won't slow us down but...

We have been blessed by great

 weather during construction this year.

 

 

 

Earlier this week we were informed that the metal frame which will hold a clear, glass window (as well as four stained glass windows from the previous church) is not done. Until that is installed, much of the interior work of the chapel can not be done.

 So for now it is sealed and what

 can be done will be done.

Fr. Vogel is among those of us who can't wait!

(Behind Fr. Vogel is the chapel side of what will become the tabernacle.)

The Universal Call to Holiness: A Five-Point Plan

To commemorate All Saints Day, let's resolve to become saints. Many people have lofty, unrealistic ideas about holiness. But God created us to be saints, to be happy with Him in eternity. So He makes sanctity within our reach.


"For this is the will of God, your sanctification," according to the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium.

During this Year of Faith, we have been asked to pray and ponder on the teachings from the Council, including the "The Universal Call to Holiness" contained in Lumen Gentium.

Here is a five-point plan to become a saint, drawn from that teaching:

1. Don't try to do it alone.

Holiness is mostly God's doing."The followers of Christ are called by God, not because of their works, but according to His own purpose and grace," according to Lumen Gentium. Our Lord presents us with His plan for us and the gifts we need to accomplish His plan. We just need to accept His will and His grace.

This is a seemingly simple concept, but of course, it's challenging. The way to Heaven is narrow and difficult, Jesus acknowledges. But the good news is that He is here to help. Jesus told us that He is the Vine and we are the branches, and that apart from Him, we can do nothing. But when we unite ourselves with Him, all things are possible.

To find out how we unite ourselves with Christ, follow points 2 through 5.

2. Draw upon the Church and its sacraments.

Through the sacraments we are "united in a hidden and real way to Christ."

Our salvation is rooted in the sacrament of Baptism, where Christians "truly become sons of God and sharers in the divine nature. In this way they are really made holy. Then too, by God's gift, they must hold on to and complete in their lives this holiness they have received."

This stained glass window reminds
us of how the Holy Spirit brings us
the seven gifts of the Holy
Spirit at Confirmation.

In Baptism and fortified in Confirmation, we receive the Holy Spirit and His sanctifying gifts, which we need to fulfill God's plan for our lives.

The Eucharist gives us the nourishment, the strength, for holiness in our day-to-day lives. "Really partaking of the body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion with Him and with one another."

In the sacrament of Reconciliation, Jesus draws us back to Himself after we have strayed. The sacraments of Marriage and Holy Orders give us specific graces to live holy vocations. The Sacrament of the Sick bolsters us in illness.

3. We must choose God's will over our own.

This is what Jesus did and what all Christians are called to do. "They must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image, seeking the will of the Father in all things. They must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the people of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history."

And how do we know God's will?





The name of this stained glass
 window is "Pray Always" and
it reminds us to do just that,



4. We must pray.

 Pray the Holy Spirit's help, for divine love and the ability to persevere in that love. And remember that prayer includes listening, especially while pondering Scripture.

5. We must love as God loves.

"God pours out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us."

"For charity, as the bond of perfection and the fullness of the law, rules over all the means of attaining holiness and gives life to these same means. It is charity which guides us to our final end. It is the love of God and the love of one's neighbor which points out the true disciple of Christ."

To love as God loves entails sacrifice and perseverance. That's why we fall back on the previous steps to holiness: rely on God's help, especially in the sacraments, pray and trust in His will.

Remember, sanctity = union with God. "All men are called to this union with Christ, Who is the Light of the World, from Whom we go forth, through Whom we live, and toward Whom our whole life strains."

And finally, a prayer to obtain that holiness:

Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may be only a radiance of yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every person I come in contact with may feel your Presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus.

Touring the Stained Glass

The workers were hardly done getting the last stained glass windows in place when Fr. Vogel was explaining them to some of the students of Totus Tuus yesterday.

If you want to see the descriptions of what

all of the windows represent, click here.

The First of the Rest is Up

 The first of the rest of the stained

 glass windows is up this morning.

More are ready.

Finishing the Clerestory

 More stained glass windows are arriving next week.

The first step of the Source and Summit project is getting the stained glass windows installed in the clerestory. We want that done so that the equipment is out of the way before the new tile is put down at the end of this month.

14 Stained Glass Windows

Sometime in the next month, the last fourteen stained glass windows will be put in the clerestory of the church as part of our remodel. Those windows have been designed. Those images are currently on display on the back bulletin board of the church.

Seven of the images (those going to the north of the current windows) depict images from the Life of Christ. The seven windows to the south of the current images remind us of what it means to be a Disciple of Christ.

For more information on the windows, click here.

30 Years in the Basement

For the last thirty years some of the stained glass windows from our second church (where the Steinhausen Center now stands) have been in the basement of the Parish Office (the old Rectory.) The window pictured above was once in the entry of the church.

After 30 years in a corner of the basement our experts expected to find the windows warped or broken. But they didn't know how well Don Schram and his friends crated these. Still, with two windows per crate, it was difficult to even guess what the image was.

We were reluctant to open a crate because it was so well preserved. But we decided to open just one to see the image and show it to our architect. If we had to re-create windows like this, it would be out of our budget.

Unlike the stained glass we just placed in the clerestory, these pieces of glass were individually painted then fired in a kiln. The indiviual pieces were then put together with lead. This is the way stained glass windows have been made for churches around the world.

 

This one is of the 12 year old Jesus teaching in the Temple.

 It looks very nice in the sunlight.

At the early meetings many parishioners suggested we try to incorporate some of these stained glass windows into a new Eucharistic Chapel. It's because of their comments that we went into the basement to look. The one above has been shown to our achitect and he said four panels like this one could be used in the new Chapel. Karen Conoan was able to direct us to a list of the windows so we didn't have to open any crates yet.

The two sets (four panels) that seem to make sense for a Eucharistic Chapel are Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (The Agony in the Garden) and another of an Angel telling of the Resurrection of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and her companions by an empty tomb. Those four panels have not been opened yet, but from the looks of the crates, they should be in good shape.

It was wonderful to find such treasures in the basement.

Clerestory

 The Stained Glass windows arrived ahead of schedule.

They are the only part of the Source & Summit

Campaign we are committed towards.

We want to see what six of the stained

glass windows look like in the clerestory.

 

 

 

Fr. Damian noted that they look very different up

close without the light flowing through them.

So what do you think?