Parish/Church

St. Thomas the Apostle – Newton

Old Site: http://www.stthomastheapostlecatholiccommunity.org

New Site: http://www.stthomasnewton.org/

Date and Mass time

April 2, 2016 – 4:30PM Mass

Celebrant

Fr. Michael Warden

Deacon Steve Zimmer

Sister Sister Marlita Henseler

The trip there and back

We are on a Saturday afternoon Mass trend these days so that Kay can make it to the YMCA on Sunday mornings and that has made for some very nice Saturday afternoon trips.  The highlight will be cover in “weather” but this was a nice easy drive from Denmark down I-43 to the Hwy C exit and then west out into the country.  The church is in the middle of the country just off Hwy 42 and it took us just over a half hour to get there.

On the way home we hit more weather, but decided to head further west anyway to St. Nazianz and then north through Valders and Clark’s Mills.  I don’t recall ever going to St. Nazianz and didn’t recognize anything, but we quickly headed for the nearest steeple and found one of our next stops at St Gregory’s.  VERY cool looking old stone church…  From there we headed north to Valders where we stopped for coffee and talked about my cousins that live there, and then north through Clark’s Mills, Cato, Taus, Kellnersville and then home.  We REALLY had a nice trip.

Weather

Well, it is spring here in Wisconsin and we should expect this, but after some pretty nice weather over the last month we got snow last week and then today we got some pretty amazing snow squalls come through.  One the way down, during Mass, and on the way home, we saw bright sunshine followed by a small cell that would bring heavy snow, that would actually be so heavy it would limit visibility.  Then more sun would follow and it would repeat.

During Mass I think we had sun to start, snow during the readings, sun during the homily, more snow during communion, and again sun to end Mass.  On the way to St. Nazianz, we hit a particularly heavy cell that actually had snow sticking to the ground, but by the time we hit town, it was clear and sunny again.  Weird but beautiful weather for sure!

Parish History

There’s no history of the parishes on the old or new website, but I know this is one of the newer combined parishes and that the church building itself is pretty new as it was just in the Compass not too long ago.  Talking to some of parishioners and Sr. Marlita after Mass confirmed that as well as some of the nuances.

The Compass article is linked below and is where I got most of this info, and I found that “St. Thomas the Apostle, which formed in 2000 with the merger of four area parishes in rural Manitowoc County.  The former parishes of St. Isidore (Osman), St. Joseph (Alverno), St. Casimir (Northeim) and St. Wendel (Cleveland) merged in July 2000.” Funny as I only recognize the town of Cleveland.  The new building was built and completed in 2014 when they “moved” in.

As is often the case, parts of each of the old parishes are incorporated into the new church building, and we note that “Artifacts from all four previous parishes were incorporated into the church, which was built by Hamann Construction of Manitowoc.”  Also “Other subtle, yet symbolically significant, elements inside the new church are the four stone pillars, which represent the four previous parishes serving as the foundation for the current parish.” Finally we read “…that statues of Mary and Joseph as well as the cross on top of the church came from St. Wendel, some of the vessels came from St. Casimir, the baptistery came from St. Joseph, and the stained glass windows and tabernacle came from St. Isidore.”

I am sure that they are focusing on the new parish and its dynamics, but I hope they find and record the histories of those older original parishes so future generations know those stories as well.  I am sure there are a lot of beautiful and strong stories that went into the building of this new parish.

http://www.thecompassnews.org/2014/06/14-year-wait-newton-catholics-new-church/

Reflections

As we have found, all the parishes we have visited and likely will visit are beautiful in some way.  This new parish is named for St. Thomas, whom I have found a special affinity for, and interestingly, today’s gospel is about St. Thomas, or Didymus the twin, also known as doubting Thomas.  Personally I wonder if St. Thomas wasn’t more doubting of himself because Jesus appeared the first time when he isn’t there, than he was doubting of our Lord. Put yourself in his shoes knowing Jesus came exactly at a time when only you were gone. Interesting thoughts…

The new church is located out in the country on a hill off Hwy 42 and is in a beautiful setting.  On a nice summer day it would have been a great time to spend outside walking around the building, but with the snow squalls that was not to be.  But I did get some nice outside pictures including a nice one of the cross outside. The building inside is obviously new, but has a lot of nice wood but is not overly ornate or fancy.  It is just really nice and had a really nice country feel.  This is another church I’d really like to visit again.

The people were nice friendly people but you could almost sense that maybe they were still building community after the parish mergers.  It didn’t seem that everyone knew each other and that they were completely comfortable, but they sure were nice.

Sister Marlita, who leads the parish, opened services with a nice talk and news. The parish is served mostly by the priests out of Manitowoc and we were blessed to have Fr Kevin Warden for Mass.  I have seen pictures of him, but I did not realize he was so tall.  I would not doubt if he is over 6’8” and is likely the tallest priest in the diocese.  But what a wonderful young man and priest. As is the case with the new generation of young priests, they are very reverent and seem by the book, but their passion for their work and their love of the Lord really come through. One of Fr. Kevin’s comment at the end of his homily that “Christianity isn’t for weaklings” will stick with me for some time.

The weather patterns during Mass were also powerful.  You could really feel the darkness and the snow followed by bright sunshine and the changes that almost seemed to be in sync with the Mass.  That kind of weather “participating” in the Mass reminded me of the thunderstorm during my son’s wedding. God sure is good!

While I would have loved to have been able to visit the sites of old parishes, the visit to this parish was again a special one.  We hope to be able to visit there again someday.

Pictures