booked with COMPASSION

St. Christopher Students Donate Books to Flood-Ravaged Kentuky Schools

BY MATT HESS

All too often we hear of tragedies in the world, but are at a loss as to how we can help—especially when events happen in other states or halfway across the globe. Being part of the Church both grants us access to a helpful network and calls us to reach out to others, to be Christ to them.

When many Kentucky communities flooded this past summer, pictures circulated on the news of people digging their homes and businesses out of the mud. In Whitesburg, the seat of Letcher County, KY, water flooded to nine feet in the high school. Families who would have been preparing for a new school year shared that many schools and their contents, including books, were damaged or destroyed.

Students at St. Christopher School in Vandalia, OH, responded this past fall by sharing the love of Christ with those students in flood-ravaged Kentucky. Interestingly, the invitation to help came from a Lutheran Church in Wise, Virginia, Christ Lutheran Church. After seeing news coverage of the damage, their outreach committee, which includes many educators, met to discuss what they could do. They felt called to collect books for those school libraries in Letcher County needing replacement reading materials. They sent word to the local community, and Elizabeth Steele, the committee’s chairperson, mentioned it to her sister, Connie.

Previously on faculty at St. Christopher School, Connie reached out to former colleagues for help from the school. Carrie Hartley, the librarian and a junior high teacher, took up the charge. During read-a-thon week in early November, St. Christopher School added a book drive for the students in eastern Kentucky, and the PTO offered a popsicle party for the class that collected the most books.

Meanwhile, teachers shared information and photos about the flooding in eastern Kentucky. One photo showed a person shoveling the muddy books they hoped to replace—an image that moved the students and spurred their generous response. “It was nice to have a concrete way to help,” said Hartley. “The students really appreciated … that.” For older students, it was a time to reflect on what they enjoyed reading when they were younger; some donated those specific titles so that others could enjoy the same stories.

St. Christopher’s 286 students in kindergarten through eighth grade raised 2,077 books, to which were added 56 boxes of books from Ohio. These were stored until Elizabeth could bring them to Wise, VA. With flood damage still being repaired, the books were kept in Whitestown’s bus facilities until they could be placed on shelves.

Struck by the reality that this was not just a Catholic or Lutheran endeavor, Elizabeth said this generosity “speaks well of humanity.” It was a human undertaking that transcended religious denominations and demonstrated that Christians are called to work together to help those in need, just as Christ encountered, loved and helped the people He met.

1880

Joseph and Elizabeth Nurre bought a country estate at the top of Mt. Airy and donated it to the Franciscan friars.

1888

Cornerstone laid, building constructed, friars moved in.

1889

Archbishop Elder consecrated the chapel on Thanksgiving Day. The large Romanesque brick chapel (which fronts the attached friary and novice house) originally had eight side altars and was lavishly decorated in German style with statues and paintings from Europe.

1890

First friars invested on the Feast of the Assumption.

1902

Mother (now Saint) Katherine Drexel visited to suggest the Franciscan Provincial send friars west to minister to Native Americans.

1978

Extensive chapel renovations transformed the chapel into a spare, airy space; eight wooden saint statues remain in niches to mark the side altars’ locations.

“People drop in here all day long to pray, and come by all day and all night to light candles in the outdoor shrine.” — Br. Vince Delorenzo, OFM

“Please kindly pray for me that God might intervene in my life. Pray that God might lift up my life to the topmost sky.” — Prayer streamed from overseas

The prayer website at the National Shrine of St. Anthony of Padua in Mt. Airy claims to receive more prayer requests than any website in the world, and it displays them in the chapel, where daily Mass is offered.

St. Anthony of Padua was born in 1195 and entered the Augustinian order at age 15. After the remains of Franciscans martyred in Morocco were brought to his monastery, he joined the Franciscans to follow their example. His own journey to Morocco ended in a shipwreck, followed by a life of travel and preaching, until St. Francis assigned St. Anthony to teach. Eventually, his preaching in Padua attracted crowds too large for any church. Today, he is often invoked to help find lost articles because of this story: When a novice stole his psalter and ran away, Father Anthony prayed for the psalter to be found or returned, and the novice came back to the order—with the psalter.

4 Banks of candles in the outdoor brick shrine (for St. Anthony, St. Francis, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Sorrows)

1 First-class relic of St. Anthony, kept in the chapel beneath a wooden statue of the saint

1 Video monitor shows a live feed of prayers to the saint coming in from around the world

1 Columnar, glass-fronted, wooden tabernacle displays an elaborately molded ciborium for Eucharistic adoration

36 Stained glass windows

1 Replica of the San Damiano cross hangs over the altar. Originally in the choir at the Duns Scotus College House of Philosophy chapel, it was moved to the shrine after the college closed in 1979.

St. Anthony is usually depicted with one or more of these symbols: a book for his scholarship, a lily for his purity, or the infant Christ for an event reported by a man who rushed into St. Anthony’s room, thinking it was on fire, and saw St. Anthony with the Christ child.