Eucharistic Processions

Two weeks ago I received a call from Pat Evenwoll.  She is a holy woman born and raised in Lake Itasca, MN, receiving all her sacraments at St. Catherine Church, at the north entrance to Lake Itasca State Park, Minnesota’s premier State Park.  It is Minnesota’s best state park because there the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi begin their 2,552 mile trek to the Gulf of Mexico.  I know the place well, because I have spent two weeks there each summer for the past twenty-four years!

A Key Lost
She called to ask me if I knew where the tabernacle key at St. Catherine was!  I’ll say more about the summer priest-vacation program at St. Catherine before I go there for two weeks this early August.  Since the parish was closed 25 years ago and is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day for the summer state-park patrons, Jesus in the Eucharist is not supposed to be reserved there and, therefore, the tabernacle is always open, the key should always be in the open tabernacle door. 
However, somebody—not me—lost the key.  Since I am the priest who has been with the program the longest, Pat called me to see if I might have an idea about where the key might be.  We talked about a few possibilities.  However, we concluded that she needed to take the tabernacle to a locksmith to get a key made…as well as a few extras!

A Safe Place for Jesus
They needed the key because, just across the street from my vacation spot at St. Catherine, the northern leg of the four United States Eucharistic Processions was to begin.  The Lake Itasca Region Pioneer Farmers Village was to be the start of the Northern Eucharistic Procession. 
Pat needed a key to the tabernacle at St. Catherine because they needed to keep Eucharistic Jesus safe overnight before the second day of the Northern leg of the procession to the Headwaters of the Mississippi.

A Supper Cruise
I met the coordinator of all four Eucharistic Processions for the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Andres Cozzens, Bishop of Crookston MN Diocese, this past summer. 

I was invited to a supper cruise on Lake Itasca by the Knights of Columbus of Bemidji and Park Rapids preceded by Mass at St. Catherine and I agreed to help coordinate the Mass for Bishop Cozzens.  Bishop Cozzens was about fifteen minutes late and I was getting ready to vest and preside at the Saturday Evening Mass for the seventy or so Knights and their wives.  He arrived just moments before I was ready to start Mass and we talked a bit on the supper cruise.  We were both ordained in 1997 and are close together in age.   I have to be honest.  His homily was only half as engaging as mine would have been!

Looking Forward to the Bread of Life Discourse
As the four Eucharistic Processions make their way to Indianapolis over the next months, I’m hoping Crescent Staff Members will contribute some bulletin articles about their own devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist this summer, when this cycle B of the Sunday Lectionary finds us proclaiming the Bread of Life Discourse for five weeks beginning July 28.  The Eucharistic Congress will have just ended.  However, the Bread of Life discourse at Mass will continue throughout the Sundays of August. 

I look forward to telling more about my own experience of the awesome life and joy that comes from devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Jesus inspired and upheld me from my homesickness of college seminary, through thousands of early morning hours of adoration at Immaculate Conception and St. Lawrence perpetual, exposed Eucharistic adoration chapel during my sixteen years as pastor there.

Errata
I regret that I made a mistake in my bulletin article weeks ago about St. Saviour vacant land.   As I arrived at our parishes two years ago, someone referred to the fact that St. Saviour had eleven acres of available land.  I later learned that the available acreage was more like five to seven.  For some reason, when I wrote the article weeks ago, I reverted back to bad information.  Thankfully, that error had nothing to do with the primary points made in the article about the good reasons for seriously considering selling St. Saviour’s vacant land.

I Low Balled the Cost
In that article I also referred to the fact that the acreage costs about $15,000 a year to spray and mow.  This number was obtained by informally pro-rating a recent bid we had.  If you thought my estimation seemed high, you would be wrong.  I asked Matt Jackson, our Director of Administration, to seek two new bids from contractors already mowing in our parishes.  Those bids came in at $18,000 and $38,000.  Obviously, the contractor offering the high bid did not want the job!   It may be a surprise to some to know that our parishes spend over $100,000 mowing and tending to lawns and landscape.
 
Special Meeting
I met with St. Saviour Pastoral Council this past week to talk more about selling St. Saviour’s vacant land.  I thank them for their willingness to continue dialogue about this issue.  For, my fear is that many are not considering all the dimensions of this complex issue and are allowing emotion to move us more than reason.

Good Reasons to Sell
I continue to stand by my evolving intuition and about the good reasons to consider selling it:  1. We will never need this land because our parishes already have the buildings we need. 2. If there would be a possible reason to build, St Saviour is too far north in our crescent to be a good location.  3. It is costing us more each year than we might imagine to hold on to the land 4. We have all the parking we could ever need relying on our neighbors at Deer Park High School and Dillonvale Shopping Center.  
      
Sincerely and with Love in Christ,
Fr. Pat