OUR 60th ANNIVERSARY CHURCH REJUVENATION
Our parish was very successful with our Heart of a Shepherd Campaign that was initiated by the Diocese. This campaign was primarily fostered to help renovate Borromeo and St. Mary Seminary, which is well underway. The seminarian and faculty residence are almost finished and should be completed by December. The complete renovation of the chapel in the center of the seminary just began a few weeks ago and should be completed around Easter. All of this, along with pictures, was presented in a recent issue of Northeast Ohio Catholic Magazine.
How appropriate then, that the percentage that comes back to the parish from the campaign will help us to clean our own church and rejuvenate (not renovate) the space in which we gather to offer our thanks and praise to God. The scope of the work that will be done includes:
• The entire interior of the church body will be painted a lighter color. This color has been present on the back wall of the sanctuary for the past year after the crucifix was installed. The color is called stone - an off white, light grey color.
• New neutral color carpeting tiles will be placed in the aisles throughout the church and chapel.
• New neutral color vinyl tiles will be placed underneath the pew throughout the church.
• The sanctuary and steps will have wooden floors, a color that corresponds to the wood work already present and flows from the design of the church.
• Tile will be placed around the perimeter of the sanctuary, as well as, around the baptismal font. This is to avoid stains from oil we use for the Sacraments or burn marks we use from incense at Sunday Eucharist, Evening Prayer, or Funerals.
• New furniture has been commissioned through Henningers, our local Catholic church architectural company, this includes a new altar, ambo, tabernacle mensa (table), and chairs. The altar will have a small mosaic design in the front facade depicting Jesus, the Lamb of God This detail will carry through, even more so, the vision of Our Lady of Knock which included an image of Jesus, the Lamb of God resting on an altar underneath a cross. The furniture will also retain a Celtic weave, keeping with the Irish heritage of our patron, St. Brendan.
FINANCING FOR THIS PROJECT
From the Heart of a Shepherd Campaign we are given a percentage of donations back to assist the parish with our project. If pledges are honored, St. Brendan is expecting to receive approximately $300,000 for our rejuvenation. The entire cost of this work will be approximately
$450,000, which includes the furniture. If anyone would like to offer a donation or help defray the cost of the furniture, please give Tom Holzheimer, our director of finance, a call. We are hoping to begin this work sometime this fall or after Christmas, avoiding any conflict with
weddings. I have been told that the work will inconvenience us for a few weekends, but we should still be able to have Sunday Mass in the church. This will put us in a good place to begin our 60th anniversary year in May, 2023 and culminating on our anniversary date of May 16,
2024 – the Feast of St. Brendan the Navigator. Any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.
CHURCH REJUVENATION PLANS: WE BEGIN MONDAY, JANUARY 2
We have a start date for work to begin on the interior of our church: January 2. The work will go faster if we are completely out of their way so that the workers can get into the church early and leave as late as they want. The timeline will be about three months, January through March. I have been told that we will be back in church in time for Palm Sunday and Holy Week. However, because we will have a new altar, the altar will need to be dedicated. It must be blessed by a Bishop before it is used for our celebration of Sunday Eucharist. The ritual for dedicating an altar is one of the most ancient and beautiful rituals of the Church. This is in the process of being scheduled. The scope of the work was written about in detail in a previous bulletin and is currently posted on our parish website.
WHAT WILL WE DO ABOUT LITURGIES JANUARY THROUGH MARCH?
Yes, this will be a huge inconvenience, but hopefully worth it… as any of you have gone through home renovation would know.
WEEKEND MASSES… Get ready for some nostalgia! Mass will be set up in the Fr. Kenny Center for the regular schedule of weekend Masses. Those parishioners who have been part of St. Brendan since before 1986, when the current church was built, would remember Mass in what is now the Fr. Kenny Center. Those who remember Barrett Brothers Garage Masses, when the parish was first founded, will remember the set up and take down that happened over the weekend to transform that garage into a makeshift church. We will be setting up for Mass on Fridays and taking Mass down on Sundays for those few months, since the school children have physical education class in the gym during the week. If anyone would like to relive those glory days or just volunteer to help us do this, please call the parish office and leave your name and number – we’ll be in touch and it would be most appreciated!
WEEKDAY MASSES… We will set up the Brendan Room in the Parish Office for weekday Mass. The Brendan Room will hold around 50 people for Mass. Those attending Mass will enter by way of the main parish office doors and down the hallway to the Brendan Room. It will be cozy but for three months we will make it work. Parish groups and meetings that utilize the Brendan Room during this time will be able to find alternative space in the school. I believe as a parish staff we have already directed those groups to another location.
FUNERALS/MASSES OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL… Funerals during these months will be transferred to St. Richard Church. I will be the presider, unless, of course, the family requests another priest. St. Brendan servers and music ministry will also be utilized for St. Brendan Funerals located at St. Richard Parish. This is one of the perks of having two parishes! During the week we do not have access to the gym because of our school and the interior of the church will have the pews removed so that flooring can be placed. St. Richard is a nice alternative and certainly a sacred place to have a Mass of Christian Burial.
BAPTISMS… We will have a baptismal font available to us for our three-month period in the Fr. Kenny Center. Baptisms will continue to be celebrated in the Fr. Kenny Center at the regular time of 1:00pm.
WEEKEND EVENTS… All groups that had weekend events scheduled in the Fr. Kenny Center during this time have already been informed of the need to relocate. Some of these events have been transferred to St. Richard’s facilities. We will make sure that advertising will state where an event is being held.
Sorry for the inconvenience, however, we do hope that it will pay off with a clean interior of our church. Through your Heart of a Shepherd donations and additional donations to this rejuvenation project, we will be able to accomplish this work that will ensure a pleasant atmosphere of worship for generations to come.
I live for Jesus Christ,
Fr. Tom