Feb 29, 2024

Greetings,
This coming Friday our 8th graders will be celebrating the sacrament of Confirmation. Abbot Hoover O.S.B. will be on hand as our celebrant. Please say a prayer for our confirmandi, their sponsors and parents this week.

IN OTHER NEWS:

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME NEXT SUNDAY: Despite my understanding that we were going to stop playing around with our clocks (there are a lot of clocks in the rectory) we will indeed be “springing ahead” onehour next Sunday, March 10.

PLASTERING PROJECT: The crew in the church is making quick work of all the plaster repairs needed. By this weekend when you will be reading this, we expect everything to be finished and the scaffolding gone and the crew working in the rectory. 

I often tell people that our church looks simple, but it is actually a quite complicated building. There is much more going on than first meets the eye. As it turns out, the same can be said of the paint. Much of the church looks painted the same color to me but apparently it is a variety of colors. The walls are one color, the outside of the ceiling another, and the grid another. The outside of each coffer (square) is lavender! I always thought it was just a shadow, but it was a painter’s trick to make the coffer look even deeper than it is. 

There are two different stylized cross patterns that alternate in each coffer. They are not painted on the ceiling but on canvas and then adhered to the ceiling. This design is not original to the building but was added later. The same can be said for the wall decorations behind the statues of the side altars. The original backgrounds there were much simpler and only once did I see a picture of them. It was a parishioner who, at one point, painted the design that we have today.

ECLIPSE: The solar eclipse is still about a month away but be prepared. Akron is in the “Path of Totality,” therefore Summit County is expecting between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors. You might be aware of this if you attempted to find a hotel room anywhere around this date! Even though it will not begin until 3:14pm, the traffic is anticipated to be so congested that all area schools have canceled classes that day for safety reasons.

According to “Signal Akron”, the county is advising people to show up early for any event that they may be attending and to be aware of the possibility that those attending Watch Parties may not be able to just go home afterwords. “Be prepared to get home when you get home.” Make sure you fill the tank with gas and have a snack and water with you just in case.

THANK YOU: Thank you to everybody, especially those who attended, who helped make our Parish Lenten Mission with The Rev. Thomas Blau O.P. such a success.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck