Treasure in the Sacristy

We are getting ready to celebrate our 125th anniversary at Holy Redeemer. My wife and I happen to be part of the committee planning the celebration. Today we went looking through the church sacristy for history. We were looking for items that we could put on display at the celebration. Boy, did we find history.

First we went through a great many chasuables most of them beautiful (some from the 70s not so much). We found beautiful copes for every liturgical season. Then tucked away in a box labeled "Altar Boy Stuff" we found black cassocks and white surplices. I am going to talk my boys into wearing them as part of the celebration display.

We found ciboria and altar crosses in various states of repair. In a box marked silver cruets I found a silver cup that I believe to be an ablution cup and another silver ciboria. Then I came across a box marked history. I thought, "that was sure nice of them to mark that for me like that." Inside the box was a large supply of chalice vales, palls, burses, and maniples for each liturgical season.

As I looked through the boxes my feelings were quite mixed. I was glad that these items were sill there and did not get thrown away, but at the same time I was sad, because they will probably never be used again. It would be a dream come true to see these great treasures used in Mass again. Once of the people who was working on this project with us commented that she could remember going to church and seeing these items being used. I could only reply, "I wish I could have seen that."

Things that I was hoping to find but did not:

roman style vestments
altar cards
altar bells
humeral veils

The good news is that we ran out of time and there were several other boxes in there marked "History". We will have to go back again and search for more treasures.