Sunset this past Thursday, Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year of 5771, celebrating the creation of the world or universe, marked the start of the annual Jewish High Holy Days. These Holy Days end at sunset September 17th with a day of atonement, Yom Kippur. In between these days, we also sadly marked the 9th Anniversary this weekend of the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
The three major religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – can surely all come together during this time in September when there is an opportunity to again appreciate more fully what it means to say that everything is created by, in and through our one God. Each of these religions teaches that we share in being members of one human family. We experience joy together and we suffer together. We recognize that people of all faiths died on September 11th 2001 and, as people of faith, we must resolve to do all we can through our promotion of peace, justice and love to see that evil such as this never happens again.
On NPR’s Speaking of Faith program last Sunday the Rabbi Sharon Brous told of a climatic prayer that comes during these high holy days. The prayer encourages believers to engage the reality of their own death. “Realize” the Rabbi said, “you cannot control whether you live or die, but you can control the way you are going to live over the course of the year. Go out and do these three things: build a spiritual life for yourself, fix your relationships and fight for justice in the world for ultimately those are the three things that matter in life.”
As we renovated and restored our Church during these past years, we also engaged in our own renewal that focused in many ways on these three things that Rabbi Sharon suggested. None of which is completed of course.
We see, for instance, scaffolding in our Church once again this weekend. Right on schedule, though, the stained glass windows removed this summer from our upper west-side nave are completed and ready to be returned this coming week. The east-side scaffolding to return those windows is scheduled for about two weeks beginning on October 18th. Then the work of restoring the lower half-moon stained glass in the nave will begin. The intended new cabinetry in the center most front entrance to the Church behind all the pews should be ready for installation sometime this month. Continued work is also planned for this and next month both on the ambo so that it can go up and down and turn around to face the east transept during baptismal services and on the baptismal font itself so it can have proper filtration and movement. Along with this work, our Restoration Committee will meet with our architects, Tom Fenniman and Chris Rome to design our Commemorative Wall and set out plans to commission four new church murals: two for the Boy Saints/AIDS/HIV Shrine and two for the Sacred Heart Shrine. Our plans naturally rely on you, the donors to our Capital Campaign, to continue to fulfill your pledge. We also hope as pledges are fulfilled to be in a financial position to place two matching Tiffany or Tiffany-like stained glass windows discovered during our restoration/renovation in our Mary Chapel on each side of the two existing stained glass windows of the Annunciation and Assumption. Remember there is still time to make a pledge!
As for our continued renewal, we have planned a Celebration of Service and Ministry Fair for Saturday, September 25th in the Xavier High School Gym starting at 6:00pm. Everyone (and we do mean EVERYONE) is welcome to this parish-wide event! During this time together we will have an opportunity to explore how we do and can continue as a parish faith community to do the three things, paraphrasing Rabbi Sharon, that ultimately matter most in life: build our personal and communal spiritual life, support one another to fix our relationships, and fight for justice in our city, our country, and our world. Please come!
May the New Year of 5771 be filled with many blessings and graces.
