Apr 09, 2026

Greetings,

What a grace-filled and historic Holy Week it was for our parish. At one end of the week was the Chrism Mass celebration in which all the clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful of the diocese were invited, and at the other end was our Easter Day festivities at which 18 people were brought into the Church.

This will be, perhaps, the only time that the Chrism Mass is celebrated outside of our Cathedral, especially since we are about to invest several million dollars into its renovation. At a meeting with the Bishop earlier in the year, it was announced that, due to structural difficulties with the parking deck and the fact that workers are being called back to the office, it did not seem feasible to hold such a large gathering in downtown Cleveland, and so it would have to be held elsewhere. The immediate thought that I had was, “Well, it won’t be St. Sebastian.” A few days later, we received a phone call asking if we could would hosting and I said Yes before even really thinking it through.

I had interrupted sleep for a few nights, as I would wake up panicking with a thought like, “Bathrooms! We don’t have enough bathrooms! What was I thinking?” But thanks to our staff and volunteers, those who prayed for the day and supported it in any way, it went off smoothly and outstandingly well. The parish and her people received extensive praise and gratitude for putting on such a wonderful day.

There are so many people to thank, and I am afraid to even try for fear of leaving some out. But here we go: Thank you to Fr. Marcelli and the parish staff who went above and beyond to organize the day and make our campus look spectacular. Thank you to those who helped park cars and guide pedestrians, manned doors, buildings and phones. Thank you to those who cooked and served, to our sacristans and those who worked security. Thank you to those who participated in the various ministries and those who attended in person or online. Thank you to those who kept attention of bathrooms and cleaned up the grounds and to the crew that came in to give a spring cleaning to the Church. Thanks to those who created all of our signs and websites, artists who provided their work, and those who donated other things (such as all of the kneeling pads at the side shrines) to make our parish shine. Speaking of shining, thanks to those who cleaned all the brass, gold and silver, and to those who made quiet repairs to the Church or made improvements to things such as our vault. Thank you to the Akron Police Department and to the wonderful employees of Good Park Golf Course who provided golf carts and drivers to help those who had difficulties navigating our campus. Thank you to Patrick and our sound company who came in to make sure that the sound would work correctly. Gratitude goes out to Bradley’s Catering, Pink Petals Florist and Mr. Nick Ciriello who donated the wine for the priests’ dinner. This is what happens when a community pulls together.

Of course, we then turned around and moved on to the rest of Holy Week, focusing particularly on Easter, though it would not need nearly the amount of coordination that the Chrism Mass did. But it still took an incredible workforce and a lot of time. In addition to those I thanked above, we continue with our seminarians, John, Christopher and Gabe, thanks to those who decorated the Church and changed the candles, Mr. Johnson and our catechists, all of our ministers, Mr. Uschold and all of our musicians, servers, those who helped with rehearsals, ushers, collection counters, livestream operators, greenhouse crew, and many more who deserve recognition by name and those who helped out in a way I didn’t even realize. God bless you all.