We are certainly blessed to be able to come together as a community of faith to worship God in one of the most beautiful churches in all of Florida. We parishioners might take it for granted, but each Sunday it never fails that a visitor will mention what a spectacular church we have. It is good to be reminded.

It is a grand building started in 1898 and dedicated in 1905. And along the way it has needed maintenance. And it continues to need care and attention in our day. Sometimes we come across older repair work that reminds us what skill and care went into the building. And sometimes we find repairs that give us pause. But mostly we come across items that time and use simply demand some attention be paid.

This summer, we will attend to the doors of the church. The doors facing Florida Avenue are in need of special attention. The long exposure to sun, sun, and more sun takes its toll. During the month of July, we will begin to remove the doors in stages and take them off site for restoration. The scope of work includes: stripping doors with a low pressure soda blasting to remove old finish, repairing the overall door, sealing cracks, filling all gouges, refinishing doors with a sun-resistant finish, insuring overall door integrity and fit, re-installing doors, replacing all hardware, adjusting doors in place for fit, and matching the surround wood to match.

The estimated cost of the restoration is $30,000 which is being funded by Friends of Sacred Heart. Who are Friends of Sacred Heart? They are a group of dedicated benefactors who formed the Friends to bring together those who share a commitment to the continued restoration and maintenance of our beloved historic church, its rectory, and the Parish Center. In 1993 they began a quiet legacy of supporting the parish behind the scenes with small, project-related fund raising. Over the last two decades they have raised $275,000 in support.

Their principal means of fundraising are the Christmas and Easter flowers, the All Souls memorial candles, and memberships in the Friends. Interested in knowing more? Contact Elaine Carbonneau at jandecarb@gmail.com or see their page on our parish web site: http://bit.ly/18NNsSf.

A little of this and that....

Last week I wrote about the big maintenance project for the summer – restoration and refurbishing of our church doors. But that is not the only restoration and maintenance project we will undertake this summer.

One of the projects already underway is repairing some leaks in the roof over on the south side of the transept (that’s the east-west space of the church over the altar rail). You may have noticed some places over St. Joseph’s altar and under the south rosetta window where the paint has begun to peel back indicating water damage. We will have to see if we can locate the path of the leakage and the extent of the damage, which we hope is slight. But with water, you never know.

Another project is the rewiring of the chandelier lights in the nave and transept of the church. Each chandelier consists of a number of fluorescent tubes as well as a down light. As you can imagine, from time to time, we have to replace bulbs, ballasts, and other parts of the light. That requires we erect some portable scaffolding, climb up, and get to work. Just before Christmas we set about the task – only to discover some of the wiring in the light structures may be older that just about all of our parishioners. Clearly it was time to rewire the lights.

Take a look up and then imagine what it takes to reach the wiring runs, gang boxes, and all the rest. It turns out there is “crawl space” that runs the length of the nave of the church. Before we can get to the re-wiring part of the work, we are “redecorating” the crawl space in order to allow people to work safely. Here is an image for you: walking the plank. Just imagine that the plank is not all that safe to begin with.

It is actually larger than a crawl space – you can imitate the hunchback of Notre Dame and work your way down the space. The environs of the hunchback is not a bad image as the whole milieu is definitely medieval and is reminiscent of a dungeon.

Speaking of medieval, which is a historic term (this is my attempt at a segue), this Tuesday, June 18th, we are starting a special 6-week course on early church history (30 – 600 AD). We are meeting in the San Damiano Center at 7:00 pm. Come join us as we explore the church’s engagement with its Jewish roots, its encounter with the Hellenistic world view, how it engages the Roman Empire, and its own internal search for theological clarity and expression about Jesus Christ – all so that apostles and disciples can carry the Good News to the end of the world and to the end of the ages.