8th Sunday after Pentecost (17th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

The Diocese has informed me that we have achieved our goal for the Annual Catholic Appeal. Many thanks to our parishioners for their generosity even after the campaign for the new HVAC. May God bless you as you have blessed this parish.

Tickets will be on sale after all Masses every weekend for the celebratory dinner after the Solemn Mass and Procession on the 19th of August at 4 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased in the rectory office. Please feel free to bring friends and introduce them to the beauty of worship and the genuine fellowship in Christ that are the marks of our beloved parish. Bishop Caggiano will be present for our patronal festival again this year. It is obvious that he loves being with us for the celebration of our patronal festival in honor of the Assumption of our Lady.

I have engaged a wonderful local wood craftsman firm to draw up plans for the Gothic triptych that will form the shrine for the statue of Our Lady of Norwalk. The chief craftsman in the shop and I had a wonderful talk about church architecture and his love for the Gothic style. I am confident that his work will be beautiful. The triptych will be painted by a artist in Brooklyn who understands the beauty of the Gothic style as well. People have asked me why Our Lady is holding an oyster shell and the Christ Child is holding a pearl. The oyster shell is the symbol of Norwalk. But it is also the oyster shell of the womb of Mary that gave life to The Pearl of Great Price who is the Savior of the world. When I spoke about this allegorical imagery with a friend of mine, he said: "But the pearl in the oyster forms because of an irritation within the shell. The imagery is missing something." So I pondered this more. And this is what came to me. The irritation is Original Sin, the Happy Fault of Adam, that made possible the enfleshment of God in the immaculate womb of the Virgin Mary to be born as the Savior of the world. Something to ponder.

I hope many of you will contribute to the cost of the Shrine. All gifts may be memorialized. Perhaps there is even one family in the parish who would want to memorialize the entire Shrine in memory of their loved ones. Please pray about this.

Our Lady of Norwalk, ora pro nobis.

Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla

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