Greetings in Christ!
Whew! Lots and lots going on. I want to thank you all for your kindness and support as I did my best to break down the new deanery model for you all. One point I guess I was not clear on (I’m so sorry!): my assignment has not changed. I will still serve as your Pastor and the Pastor of St. Mark, but I will also be Dean. In short, they’ve taken nothing from my assignment, only added to it. This new model officially begins in July, but we are to use this time until then to “start it off.” That is what I focused on as much as I could last week, with varying degrees of success.
Now…on to the happy stuff!
Our Baptismal font is moving along. A couple weeks ago, we traveled out to Saginaw to see the bowls that they are making for it. I’m pretty excited and long for the day that we finally have it in our church. The biggest problem we are running into is that the company that does this simply cannot find any employees and everything ends up falling on a few people. It’s like this everywhere, I’m learning. so we simply have to be patient. St. Joseph, pray for us!
Speaking of St. Joseph…our new statues of St. Joseph and Mary are coming along swimmingly! We were just mailed a picture of their progress again and I simply can’t wait. Once they are done, they will be shipped here from Italy, which takes a bit of time as you can imagine. Big surprise, we need patience…ha ha
A few of you asked about our relics: how do we venerate them? What is the proper way to act around them? I thought I better get after that.
Catholics understand that the human person is both physical (visible) and spiritual (invisible). With that, we use our bodies to guide our souls. We use our minds to guide our bodies. That’s why Catholics love physical things in Church: art, beauty, pictures and words…all of it addresses the whole human person. This is from a wonderful article by Philip Kosloski:
Someone venerating a saint’s relic can kiss or touch the glass case that houses the relic, or simply stand near the relic in a prayerful attitude, raising one’s heart and mind to God and invoking the intercession of the saint. Other acceptable gestures include signing oneself with the sign of the cross or kneeling in front of the relic in prayer. However, a person should not genuflect before the relic in a way similar to genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament. Christ alone is reserved that type of veneration. Whatever gesture a person chooses to use to venerate a relic, it must not be done out of superstition, but out of love for the saint and for God.
As you can see, it’s pretty simple. As we move along, we’ll add chairs so that you can sit with the relic and ask their prayers for your need or needs. We are so ridiculously blessed to have these relics: praise God.
For my part, I believe I am ridiculously blessed to be your priest. Thank you.
fjk.
