From Fr. Tom,
Did you know there are approximately 60,000 plus individual bricks that make up our church exterior? At least that’s what the tuck pointing guys say. There are 6 brinks per square foot. The total exterior is about 9000 square feet so that’s a total of 54,000 not including all the short bricks and decorative brick around windows and the top edge. So the estimate is over 60,000 bricks. The tuck pointing crew has been hard at work for about 7 weeks now, and when the j ob is completed, human hands will have touched every, single brick on our church. That hasn’t happened since the original brick layers built the church 152 years ago! It’s amazing when you think about it. Our church today is made of living stones as described in today’s second reading from St. Peter. God has touched every one of us as living stones in His church. Our faith in God can be compared to the mortar between the bricks holding the church together firm and strong. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are a weakened, deteriorated brick read y to cave in, or are we as strong as the day God made us still standing strong continuing to know, love and serve Him.
God bless you!
