Planning and Stewardship Make Valuable Additions to Our Campus Possible

Thanks to the generosity of St. Francis Xavier parishioners, and the conscientious stewardship of an advisory committee, six additions and improvements to our parish campus have been completed or are in the development stage. The additions and improvements will enhance not only our worship and fellowship, but they also will speak to the wider community of the grace to be found in our Catholic faith.

An advisory committee to Fr. O’Brien for these projects includes Fr. Duck, Larry Hoberock, Ed Gallegos, Andy Arena and Vic Schutte, the former parish facilities manager. Several other projects have been directed by one or two individuals.

Funds donated by a generous parishioner made the rectory construction possible. “The rectory is a nice addition to the campus,” Larry says. “It is essentially finished; the priests have all moved in and are able to host visiting priests and seminarians with a spirit of hospitality.”

There are four priest suites and two guest suites in the rectory that encompasses 3,500 square feet. Among the final projects completed at the rectory were tuck pointing of the bricks at the back of the structure, as well as resolving a drainage problem on the patio. A plaque has been mounted on the front porch listing all who took part in the rectory planning, design, and construction.

Another project recently completed is the replacement of cracked concrete in the plaza in front of the church. Issues with insufficient saw cuts allowed the exposed aggregate to crack. The repair work replaced the cracked portions of exposed aggregate with regular concrete. Also recently completed was the replacement of all scratched clear window glass in the church, which occurred during or before original installation.

Also recently completed was the installation in the east transept of the new hand-carved, lindenwood statue of Blessed Stanley Rother, the first saint and martyr from Oklahoma. He was killed in the early 1980s in Guatemala. A parish family provided the funds. In addition, our Spanish speaking community has been raising funds to install a new custom, hand-carved statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the west transept. More detail is given elsewhere in this newsletter. “We do have an old statue there, but it is not of the same quality as the other statues,” Larry says.

Another addition is being provided by parishioners Dave Lambert and Lawrence Roy, who have been working to place new lighted flag poles north of the church entrance sign off Country Club Road. The flag poles will display the American, Oklahoma and Vatican flags.

Finally, there is one project that is still in development, but will most certainly be spectacular once it is completed. The plan is for the installation of stained glass windows in the nave that will speak to the very foundations of our faith. “It is a big order,” Larry says. “Overall, it will cost between $3-4 million. It will likely be done in stages over a number of years.” The design calls for scenes in glass on the west and east sides of the nave. The west side will feature Old Testament covenants between God and man. The east side will be the corresponding episodes in Jesus’s life, tied to the Old Testament selections.

For a small pilot project, we plan to begin with artwork and design, manufacture, and installation of stained glass windows in the St. Teresa of Calcutta chapel. There are four small gothic windows and two circular (“rose”) windows there, and the theme will follow the gospel passage of “The Road to Emmaus.

Completion of this pilot will allow us to evaluate the installed work of the contractor before proceeding with any further stained glass installation. Funds expected to cover most, if not all, the cost of this pilot project have already been received from a generous donor.

“These are the plans, but they haven’t been commissioned,” Larry says. “It’s being discussed with several different stained glass window companies who do the artwork, design, and installation. All other windows in the nave will have stained glass windows, and themes for these have been selected. These themes will be available to parishioners when fundraising begins, once the main project is certified to begin.”

We thank our parishioners for their generosity and support as we work towards completing all unfinished projects!

A new hand-carved statue of Blesses Stanley Rother has been purchased and installed in the east transept.