Building Immaculate Heart of Mary

While St. Vincent de Paul parish was still holding Mass in St. Vincent School, the call came to help build Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. St. Vincent parishioners, who had saved and saved to build St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church, gave $40,000 from their own building fund to help build IHM. I wonder how much St. Mary's gave. And what about St. Patrick's? How much did parishioners give?

And now parish leadership will not take down that BIG FAT FOR SALE SIGN. The youth group has expended funds on fixing up Rogers Hall, but for what? If a sale goes through, it will have been for naught. Another Catholic church in the Corning/Painted Post community will be gone.

Sounds like a plan...

Pray for Fr. Fred's mother

Fr. Fred's mother has died. Please pray for the repose of her soul and for her family. Also, Fr. Fred will be traveling home, please pray that he has a safe journey there and back.

Miracles do happen

Read about it here.

Requiem for IHM?

As buyers in our community vie for Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church, comes this post about the beauty of Catholic churches from The Anchoress. IHM is a sweet and simple church, one in keeping with the spiritual beauty of Mary's Immaculate Heart, I dare to think.

There are several links to the need for beauty, for rich and poor alike. When you take away the tabernacle, when you destroy and sell Catholic churches for temporal gain, you are saying in no uncertain terms that the here and now is more important than the eternal. It's unpopular to mention the eternal nature of existence, but if you make the present of more importance than the eternal...in the end you may....lose.

UPDATE: A poem by G. K. Chesterton that speaks to 'only' losing one's soul:

Fantasia

by G.K. Chesterton

 The happy men that lose their heads
They find their heads in heaven
As cherub heads with cherub wings,
And cherub haloes even:
Out of the infinite evening lands
Along the sunset sea,
Leaving the purple fields behind,
The cherub wings beat down the wind
Back to the groping body and blind
As the bird back to the tree.

Whether the plumes be passion-red
For him that truly dies
By headsmen’s blade or battle-axe,
Or blue like butterflies,
For him that lost it in a lane
In April’s fits and starts,
His folly is forgiven then:
But higher, and far beyond our ken,
Is the healing of the unhappy men,
The men that lost their hearts.

Is there not pardon for the brave
And broad release above,
Who lost their heads for liberty
Or lost their hearts for love?
Or is the wise man wise indeed
Whom larger thoughts keep whole?
Who sees life equal like a chart,
Made strong to play the saner part,
And keep his head and keep his heart,
And only lose his soul. (H/t to Why I Am Catholic)

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Bishop Sheen...talking to us

"Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it. It does penance for the sins of others, but it is not broadminded about sin. Real love involves real hatred: whoever has lost the power of moral indignation and the urge to drive the sellers from the temples has also lost a living, fervent love of Truth." -- Bishop Fulton Sheen (H/t Barnhardt.biz)

Independence Day

The story of our national anthem. (H/t to The Last Refuge).

Piggy-backing on building churches

Here's a series of videos (premiering at Fr. Barron's site Word on Fire) that explains the importance of church architecture as an extension of Catholic theology. The videos give an overview of the new book by Denis McNamara. The book is pricey, but the videos are free. Number one below:

When do you build a church?

Course the trend is to tear down churches nowadays, but do you ever wonder how the decision is made to build a Catholic church?

In the case of Immaculate Heart of Mary, when the population of Catholics grew to between 140-150 in Painted Post, it was deemed necessary to build a church.

Just food for thought.

Fight....

...or surrender. Which is it? It starts in our parish. "There is a point beyond which they must not advance."

See the post below. Listen to the message.

It is not up to our bishops.

It is up to us.

The Church Militant and the HHS Mandate

Listen hard. Twice. Now go forth and participate in the Festival for Freedom. Yes, I know this is technically about our nation, but it applies to spiritual matters as well. You cannot appease evil.

Catholic Education

A provocative piece on the current state of Catholic education:

We are starting over

From the article:

"We have tied our religious education to the public school system of kindergarten and eight grades. The sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation have become graduation rituals, rites of passage, instead of the beginnings of a life of faith and commitment. We have turned sacrament into sacrilege. When you “get your sacraments” you’re “outta” there. (“Out of there” for those who don’t speak Chicagoan.) The Sacraments are an ending instead of a beginning. I can’t do this anymore. I believe it is morally wrong. The last time I brought this problem up, angry parents called the bishop. I remember one agitated parent who railed at me for questioning his Catholicism. He said that he was perfectly good Catholic. He went to Mass every single Easter and every single Christmas without fail.

When I realized that Eastern Rite Catholics from the Middle East don’t have Communion and Confirmation classes, a light went on in my head. They receive first Communion and Confirmation when they are Baptized, even if they are infants. They have religious education for the rest of their lives and, consequently, they have a spiritual life. They are prepared for the Sacrament of Penance, but not for Communion and Confirmation. The result is that they have a vibrant spiritual like that they have maintained in the face of 1,300 years of unremitting persecution. In this country, we can’t manage a religious life because we are up against team sports."

Faith and Hope in 1972

I was too young to have any memory of Tropical Storm Agnes roaring into the Corning-Painted Post community in June 1972. But I grew up hearing all the stories from my relatives, residents of the devastated Northside. To this day, I cannot comprehend the shock the community must have felt when the Chemung River exploded over its banks. Eighteen people died, primarily because it all happened so fast. And then there were months of recovery - people lived in trailers or with relatives while they salvaged their homes amidst the endless mud. I’ve always been impressed with how they held on to their faith and community spirit in likely the worst time of their lives.

As I attended St. Vincent de Paul’s parish school, I also learned the story of the parish during the Flood of ‘72. On Thursday night, June 22, St. Vincent de Paul’s eighth graders were celebrating their graduation with their families in the school hall. But by 11:00 p.m., Fr. Elmer J. Schmidt, associate pastor, was telephoning parishioners who lived near the dikes, telling them they were welcome to spend the night in the school. About 105 people did.

Imagine the fear people felt when the Corning Glass Works whistle blew at 5:00 a.m. on June 23. Picture parishioners fleeing to the second floor of the school and gathering in the dim corridor for general absolution. Yet in that unreal situation, they were among friends. They could draw strength from each other and from their priests – Fr. Schmidt and Fr. Joseph Hogan, pastor. They were a parish. In the months ahead, they would need each other more than ever.

There is one parting image that Fr. Hogan shared with us students many times. It was his favorite part of the flood story. On Saturday, June 24, it was time to face the damaged church. So he braced himself for the devastation inside and opened the church’s front door. Standing before him in greeting was the statue of St. Vincent de Paul. The water had carried it from its spot in the front, left side of the church (where it still is today), all the way to the back. In that moment, he felt a little less overwhelmed, a little more hopeful. He knew the parish was going to be all right. -- Susan M

Update: You might also want to read another parishioner's experience of the flood here.

Plan B

Kudos to those who are working to launch St. Ann’s Academy in Hornell, New York. The Diocese of Rochester decided that the original St. Ann’s Catholic School would close this month due to a lack of money and low enrollment. With fundraising, the school had just barely survived the previous year. It seemed that after 149 years, Catholic education in Hornell was about to fade away.

Then a small group decided to change tactics. Instead of battling with the DOR to stay open, they would open their own private Catholic school that is not officially associated with the diocese or the Church. It will include pre-K through grade three and hopefully expand in the future.

Starting a school is a huge undertaking. This group may not succeed, but they will have tried. They are now in charge of their own fate.

When someone tells you that there are no options, that you can’t afford it, that it’s impossible, think of St. Ann’s Academy. -- Susan M

Believe

Saving a Catholic School

Yeah, your vote matters

Your CATHOLIC vote matters:

Abortion in China, approved by VP Biden

(H/t Creative Minority Report)