Construction Begins!!

After many, many years, my church is beginning a large construction project.  It is all very exciting!!  We will be building a permanent Perpetual Adoration Chapel, a new baptismal font, a redo of the sanctuary to allow the tabernacle to be moved to its rightful place, and a new rectory.  Some of this construction will also necessitate a few other minor changes.  Oh, and my church is the Cathedral parish.  How wonderful will it be to have the Cathedral parish with it's own Perpetual Adoration Chapel and the Tabernacle in the correct place behind the altar!  Can't wait!!

It's going to be an interesting year as all this takes place, but it will all be worth it.  I wanted to share a few pictures form the ground breaking ceremony we went to yesterday.

First, a picture of the front of the Cathedral as it currently looks.

Just to the left of the front entrance where you can see some thicker-looking trees is where the Adoration Chapel will be.  This is the first phase of the construction and so the ground breaking was held over in that corner.

It was cold on Sunday!  After mass we headed outside wondering if they were going to be using ice picks for the ground breaking.  Did I mention it was cold?  Snow was on the ground from Saturday and it was cloudy.  As we gathered around we noticed four mounds of fresh dirt.  So no ice picks needed, they just brought dirt in!

Those shovels were gold!!

The ceremony started with a procession of the Knights of Columbus with the Bishop and our Rector following behind.  And just as this all started happening the sun came out!  How amazing is that?!

The Bishop isn't really visible behind the Knights, but that's our Rector just behind them.

Everyone lined up behind the shovels or the podium and then remarks and the official blessing was done.


The blessing itself was neat.  Not only was the area blessed for what we all look forward to seeing, but the ground breaking blessing also includes prayers for the safety of all workers that will be on the site during construction.  Isn't it great how we think of everything!

Finally, they did the actual "ground breaking" with the imported dirt.

This was the only picture I got.  I should have waited a few seconds until they actually picked the shovels up with the dirt in it.  But you get the idea.  It's all really for show anyway, right.

So this will be the site of our new St. Kevin Perpetual Adoration Chapel.  It will be so nice to have a real chapel for Adoration, rather than an old office in the school that only sits about 8 people comfortably, but you can squeeze in about a dozen if you really wanted to.  The new Chapel will sit about 30 people, enough that a class from the school can go in there as well as a few other visitors. 

I have a feeling by the time it is finished will be about the time that I will have to give up my regular adoration hour.  My husband and I have different hours that we do and we've decided that once the babies come I'll have to give up mine, but we can either all go to his (maybe, it is 6am!) or I could go in his place if I need a break and some silence.  So I'll still visit, I just probably won't be there weekly like I am now.

At the same time, the new Baptistry should also be finished!! I'm excited to think that our babies could potentially be baptized in the new baptistry shortly after it is finished.  I have no idea what the actual timetables are, but the later phases of the  overall project are supposed to start in the summer.  That seems to imply that the first phases should be done or close to done by summer. 

I love all these changes!!