In rebuilding a church, cancer patient rebuilt his health

By JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune

Five years ago this spring, Greg Thomas sat on the crumbling steps of an abandoned church.

Contemplating how to serve his creator during what he believed were his final days, he came upon the idea of restoring the tiny wooden church outside Montgomery, Minn. He never imagined that in doing so, he would restore his own health as well.

“It’s an amazing story,” said Thomas, 61. “I can’t tell you how many things have transpired because of that church.”

That story includes a century-old church opening its doors for the first time in 70 years, a community drawn together by its rebirth, the arrival of a Hollywood film crew and an unexpected spotlight on a former propane truck driver who was just trying to do some good.

Until 2009, Thomas lived an ordinary life. A Bloomington native, he worked as a truck driver, bricklayer, insulation installer and more. A big guy of 210 pounds, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and the quiet beauty of Minnesota farmland. Divorced, he had a son and grandson.

But in May of that year, Thomas was stunned by a diagnosis of Stage 4 neck and head cancer. He found himself with a feeding tube in his stomach, all his teeth removed and 40 rounds of radiation treatments and chemotherapy, which left him wiped out.

He returned to his house in Montgomery, about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities, not knowing if he would live or die. He said he overheard doctors tell his family that they might want to plan for a funeral, and he was “terrified.”

Solitary walks along the rural roads near his home soothed his spirit, and one day, Thomas spotted an abandoned church next to a little cemetery. Curious, he shook the door handle, but it was locked. So he sat on the steps and prayed — a move that became nearly a daily ritual.

One morning, a jolt of inspiration struck on those steps, and suddenly the wandering cancer patient had a plan. Thomas walked to a nearby farmhouse and asked who had the keys to the church. That someone was Don Rynda, an 82-year-old member of the church cemetery association.

Thomas called Rynda and shared his idea — namely to repaint the lovely old church. If the association could come up with paint money, he’d try to come up with the labor.

“I thought, ‘Am I just dreaming?’ ” Rynda recalled thinking that day. “That church has always been closed.”

St. John’s Catholic Church stands where the early Czech settlers thought the town of Montgomery would grow, he explained. Most folks in town still have family members buried at its cemetery.

The association said yes.

Bugs and beauty

It was a warm August day when Thomas unlocked the church with anticipation, stepped inside — and promptly fell through the rotted wooden floorboards.

Undeterred, he gazed across a place frozen in time. “It looked like people just left after the last service,” he said.

“All the pictures were still on the walls. The old Catholic Bible was still on the altar. The statues of Jesus and Mary were up at the altar. The candles were in their holders. Inside a little cabinet [tabernacle] in the altar were some folded blue cloth they used for holy communion.”

Stepping out of the hole onto the floor, Thomas heard the crunch of dead beetles under his shoes and noticed spider webs draped around.

“I couldn’t wait to get started!” he said.

Thomas began slowly by replacing outside shingles, working as long as his energy allowed. He filled buckets of water and cleaned the spider webs and beetles. He began scraping the outside paint.

Something funny happened, he said. The more he worked, the better he felt.

“It was like as I was rebuilding the church, God was rebuilding me,” he said.

By the next summer, the man who had hovered near death was on a scaffold outside the church, scraping paint.

One day two pickup trucks pulled up, and about 10 people spilled out. “They asked if they could look around the cemetery,” Thomas recalled.

The group explained they were a film crew looking for an old European-style church for a scene in their movie. Could they do it here?

Turned out the film starred Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell as a World War II veteran. The script was written by Jeff Traxler, whose family hails from Le Center. Thomas was recruited to play a German soldier “extra.”

“It was my three seconds of fame,” he laughed.

No fame, but good fortune

The film, “Memorial Day” didn’t launch Thomas’ acting career. But it did launch a series of coincidences that supported a renovation with virtually no budget and one volunteer worker.
The church’s crumbling steps, for example, were replaced thanks to an unexpected offer from the film crew.

The roof was a mess, and after Thomas contacted Springer Construction Services of Prior Lake for a bid, he wound up with free roof tiles from Kansas supplier DaVinci Roofscapes and at-cost labor from Springer.

Dutch Boy paint representatives came to the rescue last year, when the newly painted white church began peeling because of moisture problems. Its volunteers scraped off Thomas’ two-year paint job and are returning this summer to repaint.

As Thomas’ story spread, neighbors stopped by and offered support. Nearby farmers helped erect a huge donated cross in the churchyard. The American Legion of Montgomery hosted a fundraiser. Frandsen Bank & Trust in Montgomery became the depository for donations to the new St. John’s Chapel Fund.

Thomas, meanwhile, grew stronger. Last year, the feeding tube was removed from his stomach, allowing him to eat solid food for the first time in four years. He acknowledges he’s received very good medical care, but he’s not convinced that’s the only thing driving his health.

“I don’t believe my healing came from being in a hospital,” he said. “There are too many things that have happened in my life.”

Candlelit opening

On a cold December night last year, Thomas placed luminarias along the gravel driveway to the church to welcome the community to his first major open house. A new fireplace provided some warmth, and the kerosene lamps on the walls and candles on the altar emitted a gentle light.

Connie White Tupy, president of CornerStone Bank in Montgomery, was among more than 120 people who attended. She was not prepared for the wave of emotion that struck her when she entered the place. Said Tupy: “It was like taking a step back in time. It was serene.”

Thomas locked up the church for the winter after the party, waiting to reopen it until this month. He’s now launched the next phase of his work — installing insulation and repainting the white interior.
No Easter event is planned, but Thomas does not miss the significance of this holiday.

“Easter is about rebirth,” he said. “And that’s what happened to me.”

h/t to Father Z

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Lessons from the Leper

By Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio

(The Crossroads Initiative) Catholics are often confused about suffering. Some writers extol its surpassing value. But does that mean that we should look for suffering? Or, if suffering should come our way, that it would be unspiritual to seek relief from it?

The story of Jesus and the leper in Mark 1:40-45 provides us with a case study on the subject. In biblical times, “leprosy” encompassed many different skin diseases. We don’t know what kind of leprosy the man had, exactly. It could have been Hansen’s disease, which is what we call leprosy today. In that case, he would not have been in a lot of physical pain, since this disease takes away one’s ability to feel much of anything in many parts of the body. This, in fact is one of the problems with the disease. Pain actually is supposed to be a gift from God–it tells us that there is something wrong that we must attend to before it gets worse. Without this unpleasant sensation we might be tempted, for example, to ignore an infection or continue to put stress on an overworked muscle that desperately needs a rest. The consequence can be permanent damage to the organ in question, and this is why lepers are often horribly disfigured, with missing digits and extremities. This hideous appearance causes the leper further suffering.

But regardless of what kind of leprosy the man had, there is yet another kind of suffering experienced by all lepers in ancient Israel. Leviticus 13 tells us that, to guard against infecting others, lepers had to isolate themselves from the rest of society, living as outside city limits, obliged to warn all who approached them that they were “unclean.”

So the leper asked Jesus to rid him of his despicable disease, with all it ugly consequences. Jesus promptly healed him. He did this not to prove he was a prophet, the messiah, indeed, the Son of God. In fact, he gave the man strict orders not to broadcast the news of the miracle. Jesus healed him, instead, out of compassion. It was a work of mercy, which is loves response to suffering. Notice Jesus did not scold him for wanting to be relieved of the suffering associated with this dreadful disease. He had the power to free him from it and so he did.

So there are at least two lessons here–it’s OK to seek relief from suffering and, should we encounter it in others, we must do all we can to relieve it.

But there is more. Jesus took away one source of suffering but imposed another. The former leper was understandably thrilled at his change of fortune and passionately wanted to tell everyone about it. Jesus commanded him to restrain his passion and be quiet. This by the way, was for the good of others–to make it possible for Jesus to move freely through the towns of Galilee preaching the gospel and revealing his identity in his own way and according to his own timetable.

But the leper would not accept the discipline imposed upon him by the Son of God, and the result was that from that point on it was Jesus, instead of the leper, who had to stay out in the wilderness, away from the towns.

We need not go looking for suffering. It will inevitably find us. Generally, we should seek relief from many forms of suffering, such as physical illness. But as long as we find suffering to be our traveling companion, we should bear it with as much joy and faith as possible in the name of the Lord, who suffered for us, joining our suffering to His for the redemption of the world. This is what St. Paul says – whatever we do, and whatever we have to endure, we must do for the glory of God and the salvation of all (I Cor 10:31-33).

• Lessons from the Leper

Catholics take a new view on a one-time death-bed ritual

Monsignor Michael Begolly, pastor of Mt. St. Peter church in New Kensington, administers the Sacrament of the Sick to Mary Matviko at her New Kensington home.
Jason Bridge/Valley News Dispatch

By Rex Rutkoski, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Sunday, June 28, 2009

The chapel in the rural Penn Township countryside, just outside of Saxonburg and the home to Shelbourne Assisted Living facility, is the setting as Carole Thompson of Middlesex escorts her wheelchair-bound mother, Mary Terek, 86, into the light-filled room.

Her pastor, the Rev. Al Semler of Holy Sepulcher Roman Catholic Church, Middlesex, greets her warmly.

Terek smiles as Semler begins the rite now known as the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.

Rev. Semler grew up in West Deer in the pre-Vatican II era when the sacrament was known, forbodingly to some, as "The Last Rites" or "Extreme Unction."

Roman Catholics are being asked to view the sacrament, once thought only to be a death-bed ritual, in a new light. The educational process is ongoing, though changes, illustrated in one way this morning in the prayerful exchange between Semler and Terek, came decades ago during the historic Vatican II sessions of the 1960s.

"I remember when I was young and you would be frightened when you saw the priest coming because that generally meant you were near death," Semler says. "The church wanted to get away from that and not have it be a scary time, but a time of need to give a person a real idea of the real strength of the Lord."

Not only isn't it necessary to be on one's death bed to receive that strength, but faithful are encouraged to take advantage of other opportunities to receive the sacrament, such as requesting anointing prior to surgery and at communal celebrations offered in church.

"The rite used in administering the sacrament is adaptable to various circumstances," says the Rev. James Tringhese, pastor of St. Regis Parish, Trafford.

Those circumstances, in addition to pre-surgery, include those who are seriously ill, but are expected to recover; those experiencing the afflictions of old age; people who are chronically or terminally ill; those with mental illness and persons near death. It can be administered more than once.

Some people receive it several times over a lifetime.

It is primarily a sacrament of spiritual healing, which should not be confused with a cure.

"It can often be a source of grace for facing the illness realistically," Tringhese says, "and believing in the love that God still has for the person even in the midst of pain, suffering or terminal illness."

Too often, people today associate anointing with giving up hope for a recovery, says the Rev. Vincent Kolo, who has anointed more than 2,300 people in the last four years as chaplain at Allegheny General Hospital, North Side.

Kolo, a Scott Township native, sees it as a rite of hope -- "hope for here and hope for eternal life."

Mary Terek says receiving the sacrament is important to her. "I think I'm with God in heaven (afterwards)," she says. "It gives me peace."

Her daughter, Carole Thompson, understands. She had surgery last fall and received it.

"I lost a lot of anxiety," she says. "You are more ready to accept whatever outcome you have."

It is a source of comfort to a family to see their loved one be anointed, she adds. "It is one of the mainstays of our faith," she says.

It is, in fact, a very beautiful sacrament to perform as a priest says the Rev. Tom Burke, pastor of Good Shepherd in Braddock.

"When I go into a hospital or nursing home or home, people light up like a Christmas tree," he says.

There is a sense of peace, just in anointing on the hands and forehead, to pray with them and to give them the Eucharist, he says, if a person is experiencing a lot of pain and suffering.

"It is like a spiritual security blanket. If it is near death, like in intensive care, there's a sense of everything will be OK," Rev. Burke says.

The Rev. Anthony Carbone, pastor of St. John the Evangelist, Latrobe, is not sure some people quite understand the sacrament in its newer form. Families often do not call for a priest when someone falls ill because they don't want to upset the sick person, he says.

Carbone sees that as a disservice to the loved one.

"We ought to be helping them prepare for death," he says. "The whole purpose of the sacraments is for our salvation."

Still, Rev. David Poecking, pastor of St. Michael, Pitcairn, and Pittsburgh Diocesan chaplain to Forbes Regional Campus of West Penn Hospital, Monroeville, finds more people are less shy about being anointed.

Many who once associated anointing closely with death now understand the broader view of it, he says. "Nowadays, most of the people I encounter readily welcome anointing," he says.

The aging population likely has led to a much broader administration of the sacrament, Poecking says.

He recently performed the rite for parishioner Andrew DeBone, 92, a resident of Manor Care, Monroeville.

"My father is most appreciative of Father Dave's visits," says Donna DeBone of Monroeville, who is a volunteer Eucharistic minister at Manor Care.

She likes the new way of looking at the sacrament, which she calls "the center of our religious life."

Ross resident Marie Schuster's husband, Lawrence Schuster, was anointed three times in the period between suffering a stroke in 1999 and his death in 2007.

"He had such a peaceful look on his face after receiving the sacrament," she says. "It made it so much easier for me."

Dolores McFeaters of West Homestead understands.

"I can't tell you what an uplifting feeling it was, even with all the sorrow, to know a priest was there when my sister died," she says. "There's nothing more calming than a minister giving a blessing at a time like that."

Mary Cavicchio, 85, of Trafford, who has had several heart surgeries, says she was happy to be given the opportunity to receive it recently at her home from her pastor, Tringhese.

She finds it reassuring.

So did her grandmother, says Kim Halula of Wimmerton, near Latrobe. Her grandmother, Mary Gresh, 91, died June 3, shortly after being anointed.

"I think she was holding on for the sacrament. We just know in our hearts," Halula says. "Even though she was unconscious, I felt she was aware of what was happening."

Priest shortage yet to impact sacrament ministry in region

The Rev. Vincent Kolo wants to remain optimistic about how the priest shortage may impact one of his church's vital sacraments.

Other priests in the Pittsburgh and Greensburg Dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church share his hope.

"Several years ago, someone said that the shortage would force the church to look at what was essential to priestly ministry," says Kolo, chaplain at Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh. "The day that priests do not care for the sick will be a sad day."

He has administrated the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick to more than 2,300 people in the last four years. And he believes that, in contrast to some major cities like Chicago, if his fellow clergy continue to make it a priority, those in need of receiving it locally will not go wanting.

A recent Associated Press story reported that in Chicago, greater demand for the sacrament, which can only be administered by a priest, combined with a shortage of priests threaten to create a painful shortfall for Catholics.

David Lichter, president of the National Association of Catholic Chaplins, says the pressure on priests to do parish ministry has taken a toll on the number of clergy focused on health care.

To address the shortfall, the Chicago archdiocese authorized priests from the Eastern eparchy, religious orders and dioceses inside and outside the U.S. to work in hospitals. Most of the priests hired as chaplains in the Chicago area's 22 Catholic hospitals are from overseas.

That has not been an issue in this area.

"I would say there is no shortage to the point of affecting hospital coverage in Pittsburgh," says Rev. Kolo. "There are plenty of priests in the greater Pittsburgh area to cover sick calls to hospitals and nursing homes."

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Pope Benedict XVI: to follow Peter is a High Duty

Pontiff Requests Prayer for Fulfillment of Mission

Says Rome's Primacy Protects Unity and Diversity in Church

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is asking for prayers, on this feast of the Chair of Peter, for a successful fulfillment of his mission as the Bishop of Rome.

The Pope made this request today in an address to those gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Angelus.

He affirmed that the "chair of Peter symbolizes the authority of the Bishop of Rome, who is called to perform a special service for the whole People of God."

The Pontiff noted that the "primacy of the Church of Rome in the Catholic community was recognized" immediately after the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul.

He underlined the fact that within the Church, "particular Churches hold a rightful place" and "retain their own traditions, without in any way opposing the primacy of the Chair of Peter, which presides over the whole assembly of charity."

This Chair, the Holy Father added, "protects legitimate differences, while at the same time assuring that such differences do not hinder unity but rather contribute toward it."

He asked for the prayers of the Church in order to be able to "faithfully carry out this great task, entrusted [...] by Providence, as successor to the Apostle Peter."

Spiritual healing

Benedict XVI also dedicated some words to reflect on the Gospel account of Jesus' healing of the paralytic.

He affirmed the story's proof that "Jesus has the power not only to heal the sick body but also to forgive sins."

The Pope added: "The physical healing is a sign of the spiritual healing that his forgiveness produces.

"In effect, sin is a kind of paralysis of the spirit, from which only the power of the merciful love of God can liberate us, allowing us to pick ourselves up and set out again along the path of goodness."

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Pope Says True Healing Is in Truth and Love of God

Affirms Jesus Frees Us From Evil and Brings Life

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 8, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Jesus' healing work is continued in the Church through the sacraments, the charity of the community and an understanding of the meaning and value of illness, Benedict XVI is pointing out.

The Pope affirmed this today in St. Peter's Square before praying the midday Angelus with the faithful gathered there.

He spoke about the Gospel's account of Jesus curing many sick people, stating that "it invites us once again to reflect on the meaning and value of illness in every situation in which the human being can find himself."

The Pontiff referred to the World Day of the Sick, which will be celebrated on Feb. 11. He said, "Despite the fact that illness is part of human existence, we never manage to get used to it, not only because sometimes it comes to be burdensome and grave, but essentially because we are made for life, for complete life."

We think of God as "plenitude of life," he observed; thus "when we are tested by sickness and our prayers seem in vain, doubt wells up in us and, filled with anguish, we ask ourselves: What is God's will?"

The answer, said the Holy Father, is found in the Gospel. He explained: "Jesus does not leave room for doubt: God -- whose face he himself has revealed -- is the God of life, who frees us from all evil.

"The signs of this, his power of love are the healings that he carries out: He thus shows that the Kingdom of God is near, restoring men and women to their full integrity in spirit and body."

More importantly, he said, we "understand that man's truest and deepest illness is the absence of God, who is the fount of truth and love."

Benedict XVI added: "And only reconciliation with God can give us true healing, true life, because a life without love and without truth would not be a true life. The Kingdom of God is precisely the presence of truth and love, and thus it is healing in the depths of our being."

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