We Are the Church, But…
Fr. Francis Di Spigno, OFM,
Pastor
Letter from the Pastor
February 23, 2025
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
We Are the Church, But…
We all know that the Church is us, the people of God. At least I hope we all know that by now. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, known by its Latin title, Lumen Gentium, was promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI on November 21, 1964. It declares that the Church is the People of God and that God “distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church.” [Lumen Gentium, 12]
That is all true and what we at St. Francis of Assisi Parish live out through out faith, prayer, and ministry.
However, we also know that the word “church” is also a noun that means a building for public worship. It is that church that I write about today.
Although we cannot see much from the outside, the repair work under the St. Thomas of Villanova Church in Surf City is almost finished. The folks at Buterick Bulkheading have been working under the church for the past few months. Their masons have cleaned the exposed and rusted rebar [reinforcing bars,] sealed them, and repaired the cement work on all the damaged girders. When that was completed, they began installing the extra support pilings. According to the engineers, we needed about 50 new pilings for added support.
The good news is that work should be coming to an end within a few weeks!! We hope the engineers will give their final approval in early March! Once we have that we can have our church, the noun, back, and ready for Easter Mass on April 20th!
It will be very nice to have that major project behind us. We do, however, have a number of other repairs that we will need to make. The Facility Committee and I continue to work on a plan to address everything that surfaced in the engineers’ reports on our properties. Our maintenance staff has been able to make some of the repairs, but a more comprehensive plan will be forthcoming that will address the larger issues. The immediate need was to address the structural issues in the Surf City Church, and the lesser issues in the Brant Beach Church. Now that they are finished, we can move forward with the other repairs.
We owe a great deal of gratitude to Joe Hummel, the chair of the Facilities Committee. His commitment to this parish truly reflects the principles of Lumen Gentium. With his God given talents and skills he helped move this project forward and literally helped with the “building of the Church.”
Thank you, Joe, for your great efforts to giving us back St. Thomas of Villanova Church.
Peace and All Good!
Fr. Francis Di Spigno, OFM
Pastor
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