Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: January 26, 2020
I’m personally beginning to think we need to re-name Ordinary Time here in the Cathedral Parish to something else. Like “problem time,” perhaps. After a wonderful Advent and Christmas season, it just seems to me that the New Year of 2020 has already had more than its share of challenges.
We were already facing some significant costs in replacing the light-bulbs in church. (The bulbs are not the problem. Scaffolding is needed to reach the fixtures up near the Cathedral’s roof, and that’s pricey. Plus scheduling this will be a bear: brides and bishops never like scaffolding behind them in pictures!)
And we’re constantly struggling to stretch our small staff even further. Office work and maintenance work won’t get done accidentally, and as you know from your own household responsibilities, the “neverending” aspect of daily and weekly chores does get depressing sometimes.
But the most unusual headache was a crime. It happened at 9:13 am on Thursday, January 13. A cleaning crew was in the church, since the Christmas trees – but not all their needles! – had been removed the day before. For about 8 minutes the doors into the choir loft accidentally were left unlocked with no one watching. Somebody walked in off of the street and ripped off a small but important piece of equipment: the “control unit” for the bells and clocks in our steeple! (That’s how we knew when it happened: the clocks stopped at 9:13 when they were disconnected. This enabled us to know exactly when to look at our security cameras’ feed too: we’ve got nice video of the guy making sure he was alone, discovering the unlocked doors, and then leaving a minute later holding the controller!)
It’s so frustrating: he can’t use or pawn what he stole (I guess he thought it was a computer or a wifi router, but it’s unique proprietary equipment usable only here), and now we’re seriously inconvenienced in replacing it. Usually the loft is the most secure spot on campus, behind three doors and with its own alarm system, so it was just bad luck that the thief happened by when he did. Sigh! The police say they have some hope of catching him, since criminals not only offend over-and-over again, they tend to brag about their sins and stupidity.
There are some positives, though: the new, replacement equipment will be even more secure as well as more functional and technologically up-to-date. We do have “pre-recorded” bells and chimes that we’re using until then. And we all have to be happy that the crook didn’t damage more than he did when pulling it out: the unit itself cost about $4,000 back in 1993 when it was installed, but there’s a million dollar pipe organ up there that he didn’t touch. We have traditionally experienced very, very little crime on Cathedral Square, and this unusual exception pretty much has proven that rule!
So when I make an appeal to you on our Stewardship of Finance weekend, February 8-9, for a smidge more generosity in supporting your Cathedral Parish, please don’t be surprised! I don’t do it often, but as you know every now and then it’s a fact of life: money issues can’t be ignored forever! You’ve seen the “advance publicity” for financial stewardship here in The Carpenter over the past few weeks: thank you for giving back to God and His Church some of the blessings you enjoy.
Yours in the Lord,
Very Rev Paul D. Counce
