From the Heart of the Shepherd
- Church of St. Mark
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
From the bulletin for The Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 25)
6th Sunday of Easter
The mouths of men have been surprisingly silent in recent weeks on the subject of the Mother of God. This, despite her month arriving at full bloom! Perhaps Mary prefers it that way, provided due attention is given to her Son.
I like that at least Our Lady’s statue has been gracing the church sanctuary since the May Crowning. There, in living color, it is as though Our Lady contemplates in spirit her Beloved as He, with Sacred Heart exposed, ascends into the Heavens. And, though she is almost omni-present in our church, having her there in plain view seems to make this house of the Lord that much more of a home, as only a mother can do. I remind you that all are encouraged to bring our images of Mother flowers throughout the year, but in a special way during May. Don’t despise those little acts of devotion that so make Mary smile; she might just repay the favor by saving your soul one day!
Speaking of our parish family home, the Great Window Project of 2025 is nearing completion. If I am not mistaken, only the widows outside the server sacristy are lacking their new storm panes. We are grateful to the guys from Gaytee-Palmer for their diligent work and TLC they have given to our precious panes these past four (five?) months. People have commented that the stained glass appears brighter from the inside, and that from the outside the new clear panes are definitely an improvement over the cracked and cloudy glass they have replaced.
But the greatest benefit is what we won’t see: no more streaks of sediment below the panes or buckling plaster near the frames on account of water seepage. With this major project wrapping up, our sights turn upward and downward. Upward to the bell tower, which has two roofs in need of repair (the exterior roof below the steeple, and the interior roof that is the floor of the bell tower chamber). And downward, to the church interior floor, both in the sanctuary and in the nave.
It was a welcome relief this past week to experience so much rain and to not have buckets water dripping through at any place inside the church: neither in the sanctuary, nor nave, nor sacristy stairwell, nor chapel, nor any other place that has experienced unwanted precipitation in the past few years. This is the fruit of the tremendous amount of attention given to our complex of holy roofs. But the battle is not quite over. There is one final frontier, and at altitude. The sanctuary was kept dry thanks to a patch job done by Mr. Larry Leif, Dave Schmidt, and “Mene” Gene Thill. But water is still coming through the steeple roof, seeping through the bell tower brickwork, and is pooling over the tower floor. We had been hoping that in-house repairs could at least postpone undertaking a large scale maintenance project this year. But inspections after the recent rain show that this would likely be an undue risk. We are still in the process of getting quotes and thankfully we have a $70K balance in the Rebuild My Church fund thanks to your generous response to the Window Appeal (and Gaytee Palmer’s keeping to their original quote). But this kind of work is never cheap. So stay tuned.
And yet at the same time, we are staring at the floor. Not the old red carpet and now-obsolete rubber-ceramic tile. Rather, at the first draft of a proposed design of a replacement from Studio io, who specialize in restoring Catholic churches. The design is far from final and we still don’t know the price, but all who have laid eyes on it have walked away impressed and super excited. I hope to be able to share with you all the plans before I have to walk away… if all goes to plan, we can start raising funds for this at the beginning of next year.
Such are the current projects to restore and project Mary’s house, whose other name is St. Mark. Please join your pastor in turning to Our Lady with all the confidence and tender love you can muster to ask Her to guide these projects according to the beautiful designs that the Heart of her Son harbors for this parish!