ST ALOYSIUS
ON THE OHIO

Message from Fr. Ben

My Dear Friends

Let me thank you for your kind and generous offerings and work for the renovation of our church and house. I am happy to give you an update on the renovation work at St. Al’s “rectory/meeting space” and the church. There has been a lot of work carried out over the summer, and this work is continuing now and will also be taken up again after the feast of the Epiphany. The house is almost complete and should be open for a visit hopefully before Advent. This work has included: removal of all material stored in the house over the years including old parish and school files, painting all rooms downstairs and upstairs, repair of water damage and new plastering of ceilings in a number of rooms, cleaning and polishing of badly damaged upstairs floors, replacement shower, updating electrical wiring and fixtures, new windows for the house and basement, removal of large tree and landscaping at front of house. A number of items of furniture and equipment were donated including chairs for the downstairs front and parlor rooms, and a sitting room upstairs, sideboards and end tables, new kitchen table and chairs, fridge, and gas stove, two-bedroom sets including beds and tables, window shades, and curtains.

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The church has also seen considerable work including: tuckpointing of basement area of church, new steps for front entrance, and landscaping around church, cleaning, repaired and painting of all window frames on the exterior of church, including painting of cross above the building, the statue of Our Lady and St. Joseph have been repaired and repainted, the three altars have been painted white, as have the recess walls behind the altars and the wall at the front of the sanctuary. Earlier new carpet was donated for the main and side aisles of church. We have repositioned the statue of St. Aloysius and placed him on one of the original statue stands. We have moved the baptismal font to the entrance area of church and are working on flooring to create a special area for baptisms. A new mensa (table top) is being made for the original High Altar to replace the one that was taken down. Two pieces of art are being created by a young artist of our Family of Parishes, as frontals for the two side altars. Most people would think that this was enough but, of course, not us, thanks to your generosity we are planning more. After the Epiphany, the ceiling of the sanctuary and the walls of the sanctuary will be repainted. This is a major undertaking and will require scaffolding that takes two days to install. The back of the altar area will be decorated with cross design and the upper vault of the sanctuary with blue paint and stars. This is expensive work, but we have already raised the funds to make this project happen. If we raise enough funds, we will replace the sanctuary carpet, install new lighting in the sanctuary and behind the altar. A parishioner has also committed to replace the high fans (no longer needed as we have air-conditioning) with new lighting so the church is brighter. I intend to remove the bannisters from the front of the sanctuary and maybe put in a handrail to help people walk up and down the steps.

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As I mentioned we are able to do all this work because of the generosity of benefactors and parishioners. For the house repairs we raised just over $32,000 and received the gift of the furniture and equipment.

As well as that many of the professional tradesmen and our own parishioners donated both equipment and time and labor. A tremendous gift and we are very grateful. The initial cost for carpeting the aisles, painting of the altars and statues, and walls was also donated by benefactors and parishioners. So far, to complete the sanctuary work we have raised around $55,000, an incredible gift to our church and Our Lord. Everything we raise for the church will go into the repair of the church. To help facilitate the work in the sanctuary St. Al’s church will be closed from Monday 5th January – Friday 30th January, 2026. If the work is completed earlier, we will reopen earlier.

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Again, thank you for all your work, support, encouragement, and donations.

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Fr. Ben