Author: Fr. Mahoney (Page 40 of 69)

Dear Parishioners and Visitors,

Thank you! Since the information below was printed in the bulletin last month, numerous parishioners and visitors have offered to donate to the continuing effort of repairing the church’s stained-glass windows.  We are most grateful for your financial support.  All the windows in our church are precious, since they memorialize the Catholic faith that sustained the workers and families who first settled in this area.  If you wish to foster the continuity of the Catholic identity here at Saint Joseph Church, please do consider a contribution to the “Church Windows Restoration Fund”.  God bless you!

Many have inquired about the two missing stained-glass windows in the church building’s nave and narthex.  A few factors contributed to the need for their removal, repair, and restoration.  In a snow- and windstorm on January 16, 2022, two of the polymer shields that had been installed to insulate the church and to protect the stained-glass windows were blown off, exposing the two double-lancet stained-glass windows to the elements.  A contractor and a professional artisan were consulted, and their assessment was that both windows had been suffering from “age and gravity” for a number of years, and that the structural integrity of the windows had been adversely affected in recent years by the reverberations from the church bell swinging back and forth in the tower above.  In April, artisans from Artglass by Misci removed the windows, moving them to their workshops in Massachusetts, where they are undergoing a soaking procedure to remove old grout, cleaning, and reassembly of the glass components.

Despite the $22,800 repair and reinstallation estimate, these windows were memorial donations given to Saint Joseph Church in the early 1900s — one donated by the families of the loggers who worked at Camp 11, and the other donated by the parish’s Young Ladies Sodality — and they are an indispensable part of the church’s patrimony and the Catholic history of the Lincoln-Woodstock area. 

We are hoping that the reinstallation of the windows will take place around Labor Day.  In the meantime, please excuse the      temporary particle board window coverings.

With prayerful best wishes,

Fr. John Mahoney

The three parables in this weekend’s Gospel of St. Luke coincide with the unforgettable and regrettable events of September 11, 2001.  Father James Martin, S.J., shares his personal reflection of that day in his The Parable of Ground Zero: “I thought, ‘What is God like? God is like the firefighter who rushes into a burning building to save someone. That’s how much God loves us.'”

Dear Parishioners and Visitors,

Many have inquired about the two missing stained-glass windows in the church building’s nave and narthex.  A few factors contributed to the need for their removal, repair, and restoration.  In a snow- and windstorm on January 16, 2022, two of the polymer shields that had been installed to insulate the church and to protect the stained-glass windows were blown off, exposing the two double-lancet stained-glass windows to the elements.  A contractor and a professional artisan were consulted, and their assessment was that both windows had been suffering from “age and gravity” for a number of years, and that the structural integrity of the windows had been adversely affected in recent years by the reverberations from the church bell swinging back and forth in the tower above.  In April, artisans from Artglass by Misci removed the windows, moving them to their workshops in Massachusetts, where they are undergoing a soaking procedure to remove old grout, cleaning, and reassembly of the glass components.

Despite the $22,800 repair and reinstallation estimate, these windows were memorial donations given to Saint Joseph Church in the early 1900s — one donated by the families of the loggers who worked at Camp 11, and the other donated by the parish’s Young Ladies Sodality — and they are an indispensable part of the church’s patrimony and the Catholic history of the Lincoln-Woodstock area. 

We are hoping that the reinstallation of the windows will take place around Labor Day.  In the meantime, please excuse the temporary particle board window coverings.

With prayerful best wishes,

Fr. John Mahoney

A SPECIAL WORD OF THANKS

Dissatisfied with the size of the parish oil bills from last winter,  Margaret Sweeney, who provides management services to our parish office, put on her thinking cap and did some research.  Through her good efforts and negotiations, we estimate that the parish will save about $7500 in the cost of heating oil in the upcoming winter

With the US Conference of Catholic Bishops focusing these days on the Eucharistic Presence of Christ, and with the Sunday Scriptures urging us to “seek what is above,” it seems timely to review the Church’s legal regulation of the Body of Christ as it is reserved and respected in a parochial setting.  Canon law refers to the Most Blessed Eucharist as the “source and summit” of the Catholic faith.  It is “the most venerable sacrament in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered, and received, and by which the Church continually lives and grows (c. 897).” 

Given that, it is no wonder that “the key to the tabernacle, in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved, must be safeguarded most diligently by the pastor, the primary custodian of the Eucharist in a parish church or oratory (c. 938, §5), and that any danger of profanation is prevented to the greatest extent possible (GIRM, n. 314).” 

Further, this time-honored concern is addressed in Nullo Unquam Tempore; the 1938 Instruction from the Congregation for Holy Sacraments:  “The key of the tabernacle, in which the Most Holy Sacrament is kept, should be guarded with the utmost diligence, its custody resting as a grave burden of conscience on the priest who has charge of the church or oratory … the key must be kept by the priest in charge of the oratory or church, or kept in the sacristy in a safe and secret place, under lock and key … he can give this latter to the sacristan during such time as he is absent and the key of the tabernacle may be needed.”

The canons and other legislative documents of the Church are very clear that there are not to be alternative keys to the tabernacle “floating around.”  If someone has need of the tabernacle key, then it should be kept in a location under another key or code that the individual deputed by the pastor can have access to rather than keeping the tabernacle key. 

With prayerful best wishes,

Fr. John Mahoney