Summer Projects Update
It’s hard to believe that summer is coming to an end; I hope you’ve enjoyed some time for rest and relaxation! As we do every summer, this year, we have undertaken a number of projects throughout our parish facilities. The gym floor was resurfaced again this summer; this cost $3,592.00. As you may recall, it was completely replaced last spring after the gym was flooded when Aqua improperly connected our gym to its new water line. Fortunately, Aqua paid for the floor’s replacement but it needs to be refinished annually for the safety of all who use the gym since the floor becomes dangerously slippery as its finish wears off.
In school, all of the hard surface floors were stripped and waxed. This is done every summer to prepare for another busy school year; the cost for this work is $8,218.00 And, eight of the windows in the front office area are being replaced. We are very grateful to the Tague family, longtime parishioners, for providing the windows at a greatly reduced price; this work cost the parish only $26,085.00.
We also spent some time to clean out and reorganize the church and rectory basements. As I’m sure you can well imagine, we have items left over from innumerable parish activities that have accumulated in these basements. It was time to reevaluate what we could still use and what needed to be thrown out. I want to take this opportunity to thank Anne Condello, Jessie Bryan and Steph Twohig for working with Dave Craver, our facilities manager, to evaluate, eliminate and consolidate everything in the church basement. It looks much better and will allow everyone to have easier access to the items that were left after the much-needed purge.
The major summer project has been the installation of a new sound system in our church. As I noted earlier this summer, our current sound system, installed in 2012, needed to be replaced as so many of the electronic components of the system had broken down. As I’m sure you have experienced yourselves at home and work, the electronics of so many products last eight to ten years. When they break down, the entire system often needs to be replaced due to significant technological improvements. We’ve been working all summer on replacing the entire system (wiring, speakers, amplifiers, mixers and microphones). You will notice the ten new speakers already installed throughout the church. What you do not see is the hundreds of feet of wiring that has been run to connect them to the rest of the new system. Fortunately, Chris Plasha, who retired just last year as our facilities manager after he moved to the Poconos, was willing to return and oversee this work. Due to his involvement in the installation of the sound system in 2012 as well as the installation of our new church lighting system and pipe organ, he has discovered all of the nooks and crannies and hidden passageways so that these wires could be run most effectively and remain unobtrusive. He is currently working with several experts in the church sound industry to connect the speakers to the mixer, and amplifiers. He will soon oversee the installation of new microphones and a loop system that will allow those with hearing aids that are Bluetooth equipped to hear through their hearing aids. We hope everything will be in place and operational within the next few weeks with the expectation that the improvements will result in a much better auditory experience for everyone. I’m sure you realize how important this is for all of us to participate in our sacred liturgies, especially the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. I hope you will respond with your generous support of this work which is projected to cost approximately $75,000.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support for your parish. We are, indeed, blessed with a strong and thriving parish, the result of so many parishioners involved in so many ways as we work to build up God’s kingdom in our midst! As Labor Day fast approaches, I hope you can enjoy the rest of the summer; September is just around the corner!
Black and Indian Mission Collection
Over the past several years, the local media has drawn a great deal of attention to the inequality in the quality of education offered in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia. We are blessed to be involved in supporting a school in our sister parish – St. Martin de Porres – that helps over 440 children in one of the most challenging areas of the city to receive a high quality education in a faith-filled environment. This inequality in educational opportunity has a long history throughout our country and next week, we have the opportunity to contribute to addressing this ongoing problem as we participate in the annual Collection for the Black and Indian Missions. Established in 1884, the Black and Indian Mission Collection responds to the concern of the Catholic Church throughout our nation for evangelizing the Black, Native American and Indigenous peoples of the United States of America. Your contribution to this fund assists clergy, religious and lay catechists, parishes, schools and catechetical centers in their ongoing efforts to evangelize these people – so often forgotten by the rest of our society.
This important ministry within our Church has an interesting local connection; allow me to share it with you. I imagine you’re familiar with the story of St. Katharine Drexel, our first Philadelphia-born person to be declared a saint. She was the daughter of Francis A. Drexel, a wealthy international banker. Born in 1858, she lived a very comfortable life as a child and young woman. She was well educated and travelled extensively around the country with her family in their private railroad car. A book that she read, Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor, brought to her attention the plight of the American Indians. So, while she was on a European tour, she met Pope Leo XIII and asked him to send more missionaries to Wyoming for her friend, Bishop James O’Connor. The pope replied, “Why don’t you become a missionary?” Her initial response to his answer was to become so distraught that she became ill.
Once home, however, she visited the Dakotas, met Red Cloud, the Sioux chief, and began a systematic aid program to Indian missions. In 1889, she renounced her fortune and dedicated her life to care for the American Indians and African Americans. By 1942, she had a system of 50 missions for Indians in 16 states and Catholic schools for African Americans in 13 states. Her crowning achievement was the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first university in the United States for blacks.
I present her inspirational life for your reflection as we prepare, once again, for this annual collection, which we will take up next weekend. Your support impacts the daily pastoral work of our bishops, consecrated religious men and women, and lay leaders who minister on Indian reservations, urban centers, Black Catholic and Alaskan Native parishes, and mission schools throughout the country. And locally, a number of parishes in our Archdiocese – including, St. Martin de Porres, our sister parish – are able to fund pastoral outreach and evangelization programs. Every year, about $9 million is collected from Catholics across the U.S.A. It is only through your continued generosity to this collection that such efforts can be realized.
The Black and Indian Mission Office is comprised of three distinct but inter-related organizations, each with its own purpose and history, but all seeking to fulfill the one mission to three mission outreaches in our country. The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions was established in 1874 to evangelize the American Indians and to advocate for better treatment of these earlier settlers of our land. The Commission for Catholic Missions, founded in 1884, focused on serving the Native Americans in Alaska. And, the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board was established in 1907 to evangelize and serve the African American community in our country. By 1980, these three separate organizations, all founded by the Catholic bishops of the United States, were combined into the Black and Indian Mission Office which cooperates with local diocesan communities to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and respond to real and pressing needs of these three communities.
After his resurrection, Jesus commanded his followers to “go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15). Pope Francis reminds us regularly that everyone is called – by their baptism – to share in the essential work of evangelization. As we begin another year of evangelization in the Black Catholic, Native American and Alaskan Native communities, everyone is called to make a difference by offering their prayers and financial support. As you have done in the past, I encourage you to be generous to this annual collection.