Universe Bulletin features St. Paul

(Photo by George Ruegg)

Metal artwork on church wall. George Borisuk worked for 10 months in his spare time

Activities of St,. Paul parish to observe the Pauline Year honoring our patron saint are featured in the page 1 article on the Year of St. Paul in the August 22 issue of the Catholic Universe Bulletin.

A photo of our pastor, the Rev. Fr. Ralph Thomas, and a black and white reproduction of the metal artwork on the northeast wall of the church are used to illustrate the story by Sarah Sweda.

The article notes that St. Paul Church, one of the pilgrimage sites designated by Bishop Richard Lennon for the Pauline Year, is celebrating a Mass and Novena each month and other events throughout the year to welcome visitors.

The distinctive metal artwork traces the stages of St. Paul’s life from Saul the persecutor to Paul the martyr hangs on the northeast wall of the church.

The artwork is fashioned from pliable metal meticulously formed into a 15-foot long tableau with the word Saul at the left and Paul at the right .St. Paul is depicted from student to tentmaker, to convert, missionary, confessor, author and finally martyr. The conversion is the center of the design.

The artwork was crafted from a design created on large sheets of paper by Sister Carol Joy who was at St. Paul at the time it was created during the pastorate (1973-1981). of the late Fr. Thomas Koegel. The metal work was formed by parishioner George Borisuk who used round steel to cut, shape and weld together to form the design. Borisuk spent 10 months in his spare time to fashion the artwork from the drawing.

Fr.. Thomas, was in Rome to attend the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the feast of SS Peter and Paul on Sunday, June 29, when Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople joined Pope Benedict XVI and both delivered homilies for the inaugural of the Pauline Year. The photo shows Fr. Thomas in front of Trevi Fountain in Rome.

The parish is commemorating the jubilee year with a Mass and novena to St. Paul on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the church. There also are discussions on the Letters and writings of St. Paul on the second Wednesday of each month throughout the Pauline Year which continues until June 29, 2009. The jubilee year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Apostle .

Because the church has been designated as a pilgrimage site each and every truly repentant individual member of the Christian faithful, duly absolved through the Sacrament of Reconciliation and restored with Holy Communion and who prays for the Supreme Pontiff's intentions, will be granted the Plenary Indulgence from temporal punishment for his/her sins, once sacramental forgiveness and pardon for any shortcomings has been obtained.

The Christian faithful may benefit from the Plenary Indulgence both for themselves and for the deceased, as many times as they fulfil the required conditions but only once a day.

In order that the prayer raised on this holy visit may lead and invite the souls of the faithful to venerate more intensely the memory of St. Paul, the following has been established:

The faithful, in addition to raising their own supplications before the altar of the Most Blessed Sacrament, each one according to his own devotion, must devoutly recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding pious invocations in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Paul. And may this devotion always be closely united to the memory of the Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter.