Our noon reading for October 5 is from "The Meaning of the Mountain" by Sister Faith Schuster: On October 5, 1922, the feast of St. Placid, who had been one of the first pupils at a Benedictine monastic school, ground was broken [for the administration building]. On February 28, 1923, the cornerstone of the building was laid, … Early in the building, four men fell from the second story under construction. The community made a novena to the newly beatified Theresa of Lisieux for their recovery. When two of them died, the sisters grieved, and a small statue of St. Joseph was fixed to a pedestal on the wall of St. Cecilia’s old building so that the great workman, perhaps more experienced in building than the younger saint could watch over the rest of the process. There was great bustle on the grounds during the building. Mother Aloysia and Sister Rosalia followed almost every inch of its progress with anxious joy. Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner were served to workmen and overseers whose homes were not in Atchison. Every brick mattered and every day mattered. Atchison itself had not really seen such a structure. In the spring of 1923, Mother wrote the mission schools to encourage girls to enroll in fall courses. The rapidly rising shell of brick and grass, with its five acres of prospective classrooms, was secretly challenging everyone’s faith, and Mother Aloysia had been heard to say: “May the community forgive me if I have built too big.” By January 15, 1924, feast of St. Maurus … the building was finished enough to bless. In five acres of brick, stone, and window, it rose in five stories, a majestic and wonderful building which had cost $810,000.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 15:21:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015