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| The old, nasty, oxidized plexiglass protective covers were placed over the windows in the late 1970’s. |
You know I have been holding out on you, but now it’s time to say what is this summer’s church project. Six months in the offing, work will begin this week. It will generate some distraction, some difficulty, and no small amount of debris, but I am excited and confident that you will be pleased. It may not be fun to watch, but the results could well be spectacular.
Beginning Monday, August 6, two teams of contractors will begin work on our stained-glass windows. The second team will be from Lamb Studios in New Jersey, stained-glass specialists for more than a century and a half. They will be cleaning, repairing, and re-glazing the windows, that is, replacing the putty-like substance that seals the glass panels into the metal window frames. They will then place brand-new, crystal-clear, ventilated protective covers over the exterior of the windows.
The firstteam on the scene will remove the old, nasty, oxidized plexiglass protective covers that were placed over the windows in the late 1970’s (Monsignor Foley days). They will then remove the old glazing, which once was putty-like, but has now dried, cracked, and crumbled. We need a separate contractor to do this work before the actual window contractor starts because the old glazing contains some asbestos, a major complication. Campbell Gibbons and Associates do a lot of asbestos mitigation for Archdiocesan parishes and facilities, and now will do it for us. Campbell Gibbons and Lamb Studios have been communicating and coordinating their plans, and both have been most responsive to the particular needs of our parish. I have every reason to believe that they will do their work well.
But in order to let the contractors begin work early on these hot summer days, weekday Masses will be celebrated in the convent chapel until the project is completed. That will require some adjustment on everybody’s part, but I am confident the daily Mass crowd is willing to make the sacrifice. Weekend Masses will be in the church as usual, though some of the windows may be covered.
It is hard to say just yet how long the project will take; we will know better after the first few windows have been completed. We are hoping to be done in four to six weeks; I think it would be great to have everything finished by the weekend after Labor Day, when everybody returns from vacation.
Representatives from four different stained-glass companies consulted in the preparation for this project. All four marveled at the beauty and quality of our windows, and were amazed that the parish paid for and installed them all within a few years of the construction of the church. It shows a remarkable level of commitment to beauty, care for the parish, and generosity to the church to do this while still covering the cost of the church building itself. It says a lot about the people who founded this parish and entrusted the legacy to us.
The change in the windows will be significant. The amount of light entering the church will increase significantly, and the windows and their colors will show more vividly. More striking, the windows will be visible clearly from the outsideas well, for the first time in decades; so, our church will be more beautiful inside and out.
You may think that this work is the first fruit of our Capital Campaign, but no. This work will make a big difference to the interior of the church, and therefore will affect decisions about how to improve it – lighting, painting, and such. That is whywe are doing it beforewe start the work for the Campaign. Howwe are doing this now is that last year we received a large bequest, which will cover the entire cost of the project. I will share more information about that with you soon.
It is rather a relief to have something practical and even mundane to write about this week. Happy August, people!
Monsignor Smith
