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May 23, 2023By Sam Lucero, OSV News
ASHWAUBENON, Wis. (OSV News) -- A resurrection of sorts took place this spring at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish's Mount Calvary Cemetery in Ashwaubenon, where a newly restored life-size crucifixion monument was rededicated on Ascension Sunday, providing an important lesson about what it means to live, die and rise with Jesus Christ.
After the marble statue of Jesus on the cross was damaged in June 2021, Norbertine Father Jim Baraniak, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in nearby De Pere, Wisconsin, decided to have the corpus replaced. "We don't know if it was an act of vandalism, just old age or if it was a lightning storm that struck the original corpus on this cross," he said.
On Ascension Sunday, May 21, an outdoor Mass was celebrated at the cemetery to bless and rededicate the crucifixion monument. During his homily, Father Baraniak said care for the monument, as well as for the graves of those buried there, is part of the church's role of honoring their beloved dead.
"We are the ones who are the caretakers of this faith right here and now," he said. "It is about our Catholic heritage, dear friends, and that's why we revere our faithful departed in such a way."
When the monument's planned restoration was announced during an All Souls Day Mass with students from Our Lady of Lourdes School last fall, it served as a teaching moment for Father Baraniak. He had told students who attended the cemetery All Souls Day Mass that the damaged corpus was a reminder to them to be the hands of Jesus.
"I want you to remember forever -- that Jesus needs a hand," he said.
"Jesus has your hands to reach out to somebody else, to embrace somebody else," Father Baraniak said. "Even before we get to heaven and the communion of the saints, we are saints in the making. That requires us to literally reach out to one another in kind and generous loving ways."
The feast of the Ascension is ordinarily observed in the Catholic Church on a Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday, to mark the 40 days of Jesus Christ's life following the resurrection and his ascension into heaven. However, in the U.S., all ecclesiastical provinces except Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Connecticut, and Omaha, Nebraska, have transferred its celebration from Thursday to the following Sunday.
Father Baraniak told OSV News that Ascension Sunday was "the perfect date for us to come here" to rededicate the monument. "It gives our people an appropriate time to come out here and get the graves ready for Memorial Day."
On the Ascension, "when our eyes look heavenward, we are reminded that, if we live like Christ and die like Christ, we should absolutely rise like Christ," he added.
The restored crucifixion monument was originally expected to be completed by Holy Week of 2023. However, Wisconsin's spring weather pushed the project back.
On April 11, members of William A. Hein Construction Company removed the marble corpus, which stood 70 inches tall, from the cross. The entire monument, including the statues of the Blessed Mother, St. John the Evangelist and St. Mary Magdalene resting at the foot of the cross, was cleaned using a low pressure "softwash," and then stained May 13. Workers returned May 16 to fasten the new fiberglass corpus and the "INRI" inscription to the cross.
"This (monument) has graced our faith community for at least 125 years now, if not closer to 150 years," Father Baraniak said during the dedication. "Because of what we were able to do in the past couple of months, it will grace our faithful for the next 125, 150 years as well."
Before blessing the monument with holy water, Father Baraniak told parishioners that "we still miss and grieve for our loved ones. So we take time, this holy Ascension day, to pray that God may welcome them among all of the saints in heaven.
"It is our right, our privilege, our sacred duty to remember our faithful at the altar of God and to pray for their souls," he added.
According to Father Baraniak, the remains of the original marble corpus will be ground up and used as decorative landscape material adjacent to flower beds at the foot of the cross. "We are putting it to rest in a very life-giving and dignified way," he said.