Bulletin column from September 18, 2022

Dear Friends at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish and Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish:

Praised be Jesus Christ! As we cross through the middle of September and enter officially the fall season, allow me to offer a couple of brief updates on some of our major construction projects at both parishes. Like so many people these days we continue to be affected by materials and labor shortages that slow our progress. However, we do continue to slowly move ahead.

Over the summer two of the four original SFC school bathrooms were totally re-done using Love One Another Campaign funds. It took several crews the entire summer to do all the work, but the end result is fabulous! Our new school lockers are on their way and should be installed this fall. Little Saints Early Learning Center is almost ready to begin using their new play area which took much of the summer to complete, which included the work of constructing a retaining wall and pouring a large cement slab for the play equipment. We are waiting on safety mats and new fencing for that project to be done. Work crews will also begin soon on extensive repair work in the largest room of the Learning Center that was damaged earlier this year as a result of a water line leak.

The new murals for the Cabrini church renovation are about 75% complete, painted on sections of canvas at the Conrad Schmitt Studios, and once finished they will remain stored in the studios until our church building is prepped and ready for them to be installed. We are finalizing the specs for New Holland Church Furnishings to begin building all of our new pews and altar furniture which (at this point) is set to arrive late next Spring. Unfortunately, the bulk of the other Cabrini church interior work will have to wait until we have had sufficient time to test out the latest church tower roof repairs and modifications to see if our persistent water leak is finally stopped. We will come back to that later this fall and winter. Almost all of the new interior church/narthex lighting controls and lighting updating work has now been completed, also with LOA Campaign monies.

The Adoration Chapel and new Cabrini confessionals are still in process. The confessionals are simply in need of doors which have at last arrived and we will coordinate their installation with the next round of chapel work so that when we shut down the chapel for this work, the shut down window can be as short as possible. The next round of chapel updates should include the new chapel doors (minus the glass we are still waiting on), the candle stands, the holy water font, the icons with frames, the permanent crucifix, and completing the base trim along the floor. Later rounds up updates will focus on the main altar and the back altar, and then lastly the rest of the work in the lobby: closet and shelves.

At Saint Mary’s, we have been working on and off over in the old school since about Easter to prepare the building for the parish staff to relocate there. We have completed a lot of new plaster work, some flooring work, and substantial painting work, and about 2/3 of the new HVAC work. There is still a lot more to do and it will be time consuming work meaning we cannot predict yet an end date; additionally, a major component of the new HVAC update continues to be unobtainable from overseas suppliers and they cannot promise us a delivery date at this time. Until the school work is totally finished, we cannot begin to look to the rectory work to move the priests back into that house. Ideally we could begin that work this coming summer of 2023.

There is a lot of concrete work that is in progress around the Saint Mary’s campus. We have been told that before this winter, all of the new concrete work around the old school entries, the church hall entry, and the entire school garage driveway should be completed. We are waiting for a set of comprehensive engineering drawings for the new church front steps and extended entry area. Once all of that is approved we hope to begin that project, and all the church foundation drainage work, in the spring or summer of 2023.