Mar 16, 2023

Greetings,

When you came to Mass last weekend, you saw the giant electronic signs that proclaimed, “Mull Avenue to close Monday, March 13”. Although we were promised a month’s warning to prepare for this eventuality, we only found out about this pushed up date the Tuesday before. Because of manpower dificulties, the city and contractor schedules had to change dramatically.

The good news that comes from this change of plan is that the road should be completed earlier than originally anticipated. Here’s what it means for you. We are assured that Mull Avenue will remain open for weekend Masses. The road will be open for local trafic and you should be able to both drive on Mull Avenue and park on both sides of the street as you have been accustomed to doing. We have also been assured that student drop of/pick up will be maintained until Easter.

What we were not prepared for was the Triangle (Elmdale Park) being closed. Although the Triangle was a signifcant part of our discussions, it was never mentioned that it would be the staging ground for roadwork. In fact, we repeatedly made mention that we would get by just fne with the closing of Mull Avenue as long as we had the Triangle to park on. We were even successful in putting of improvements to the Triangle until afer the Mull Avenue work was completed. Then a little mountain with a fence around it appeared! Your parish staf is working on what it can do this week to make life easier for you when you come to Mass on Sunday. Hopefully you will not be inconvenienced too much.

All this will remain in place until afer Easter. Beginning Easter Monday, Mull Avenue will be completely closed for a couple of months for the re-bricking. That is when things will become tricky. I am looking for solutions for that period including opening the lawn at the rear of the rectory for parking if that appears to be feasible.

At that time (afer Easter), we have been assured that either Greenwood or Elmdale would always be open for you to cross over Mull Avenue, which will give you access to the church parking lot. Mull Avenue will be closed up to Clemmer. As we get closer to that post Easter date, there will be a plan in place to make getting to Mass as easy as possible. Please have patience and pray for your parish. Hopefully this will be more of an interesting adventure than anything else!

IN OTHER NEWS:

EXTRAORDINARY FORM: I was able to have dinner with our Bishop before confrmation this past month and the conversation turned to the extraordinary form (Latin) Mass. It is apparent that the Bishop is attempting to do what he can to assure the long-term future presence of this form of the Mass in the diocese and he is weighing a number of options including petitioning Rome to keep things exactly as they are, though he holds out little hope on that. What the future holds we do not know as of yet. There are rumors and rumors of rumors and in this week’s Angelus Letter, I will try to give you a little more information about how St. Sebastian Parish intends to respond. I know this is a dificult and confusing time for many. Please know of my prayers.

SOME EVENTS TO KEEP IN MIND:

NINE NIGHTS OF NIGHT PRAYER: St. Paul Parish on Brown Street is participating in Nine Nights of Night Prayer beginning March 17. Doors open at 8pm and prayer begins at 8:15pm. Approximately 20 minutes. See Angelus Letter for more information.

THEOLOGY ON THE ROCKS: Will be Monday, March 20. See elsewhere in the bulletin for more details!

TALK ON PAINTING: I will be giving a talk on our new painting, “The Flagellation of Christ” at St. Joseph Parish in Cuyahoga Falls on Wednesday, March 22 at 7pm.

NEW SERVER PRACTICE: All parishioners from 4th through 8th grades are invited to learn how to serve Mass on Monday, March 27 at 6pm sharp in the church.

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck