Parish/Church

St. Nicholas – Freedom, WI

http://parish.stnicholasfreedom.org/

Date and Mass time

August 3, 2014

Celebrant

Fr. Walter Stumpf

Deacon Gary Vanness

Weather

A WONDERFUL Sunday summer morning! We decided on the 8:30am Mass so we left pretty early.  It has been a wonderfully cool summer so far, but today was a little humid and about 70.  The skies were mostly clear and the sun was shining brightly. Great morning for Mass!!!

The trip there and back

As mentioned, we decided on getting to the 8:30am Mass to try to keep the afternoon open.  As I knew the roads well (just ten miles past work) we left promptly at 7:15 and were to Freedom before 8am.  We took a quick tour around town, mostly to reminisce about the old days traveling there for basketball when the boys were young.  We spent some time walking around outside taking pictures and admiring the nice building and landscaping.

On the way home we stopped at my office to check things out as Kay had not been there for a while and then we stopped in Wrightstown to do a little grocery shopping.  Then it was home…  Very nice trip!

Parish History

The parish website didn’t have a parish history, but there was a memorial in the gathering area noting the 150th anniversary of the parish in 2010.  That would make the parish 154 years old.

Reflections

What a wonderful visit we had today to St. Nicholas in Freedom.  This is our 3rd stop in our pilgrimage.  We missed our July visit due to various scheduling conflicts, but we are back at it and had a great experience.

The parish has a new priest in Father Walter Stumpf.  He was re-assigned from the Crivitz area church just last month so he is very new to the parish, but you would never know it based on the services.  Father Walter is a younger priest and mentioned during the homily he was one of 8 seminarians.  Presently the diocese has 30!

St. Nicholas is an older church (154 years) but has recently (but not sure how recent) undergone a major renovation moving the altar more center and the tabernacle is featured in what I assume was the old sanctuary.  The old is still very prevalent in the art and design but I really like the way the incorporated the “new” design with the altar more forward.  

They have two very nice little chapels left (for Mary) and right (for St. Joseph) with votive lights, the stained glass is wonderful, and my favorite is the depiction of the 12 apostles over the naïve of the church.  It’s a beautiful church!

The outside is equally nice but not overdone.  I have drivel past a few times and barely noticed it, but the grounds are neat and clean, a nice statue of Jesus out front, a nice sign, and two beautiful little gardens, one for Mary and one with a nice stone with the Ten Commandments on one side and the Beatitudes on the other.  They also have a school so there is a nice playground as well.  Did I mention it is a beautiful church!

As I seem to be noticing, I am a bit preoccupied on these visits, noticing all the beauty and Glory in this place of worship.  I have a hard time focusing on prayer and the sanctity of the Mass, but I think maybe that is a little OK, at least I hope it is.  Our “Church”, meaning the Catholic Church, is a beautiful thing, and I hope the Lord understands that sometimes we humble simple humans can be a bit awestruck by the incredible beauty we see.  I pray…

The Mass was great though, with very nice music.  Fr. Walter’s homily struck on the upcoming seminarian collections and today’s Gospel of the loaves and the fish and the feeding of the 5000. He very nicely tied the two together in the Lord “ordering” the feeding of the 5000 along with his “holy Orders” for you priests and seminarians.  He also brought up what I assume is their major fundraiser of the year, Country Fest, which is next week.

Again here at St. Nickolas, the highlight of the visit was the welcoming of the parish.  We are new there, I assume none of them had every saw us, but yet we both felt very welcome.  After Mass talking to Deacon Gary Fr. Walter it was like we had been old friends and as we toured the church after taking pictures and looking around, yes we did get a few funny looks as you would expect, but mostly we got smiles.  It was great!

Pictures