Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Bishop Flores offers Mass of Reparation at Most Holy Trinity
Bishop Flores offers Mass of Reparation at Most Holy Trinity
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published September 19, 2008
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Some Most Holy Trinity Elementary School students head to the front of the church to lead fellow students and others in the singing of "God Bless America" at the end of the Sept. 11 Mass of Reparation and Repentance at their church. |
Detroit — Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Flores explained to students from Most Holy Trinity Elementary School why a Mass of Reparation and Repentance was being celebrated Sept. 11.
"This Mass is to say to Jesus that we love Him. Someone broke into His house and they disrespected His house," Bishop Flores said in his homily at the special Mass held two days after it was discovered that thieves had broken into Most Holy Trinity Church in Detroit's historic Corktown district.
The burglars broke into the church sometime overnight Sept. 8-9 and made off with the tabernacle containing consecrated hosts, an early 20th-century Russian icon, the corpus from a bronze cross, chalices and ciboriums from the sacristy safe, a 19th-century light fixture, and numerous brass or bronze candlesticks and votive light holders.
Bishop Flores explained to the children that the tabernacle "is where Jesus stays in the Blessed Sacrament." He led the 110 children from grades one through six in saying the Our Father three times at the end of his homily as called for by the ritual, and asked them also to pray for those who committed the burglary, that they might also come to know Jesus.
The children and their teachers made up most of the congregation for the Mass, with about two dozens other adults also in attendance.
Bishop Flores then presided at a celebration of the Eucharist at the bare altar, which had been anointed at the beginning of the Mass. Fr. Russ Kohler, pastor of the parish, and Fr. Marie-Elie Haby, associate pastor of St. Stephen/Mary, Mother of the Church Parish in southwest Detroit, concelebrated.
After Communion, the bishop and priests knelt before the altar for additional prayers before Bishop Flores placed the remaining sacrament into a small wooden tabernacle that had been placed on the side altar where the stolen bronze altar had stood.
Fr. Kohler said the wooden tabernacle, which had been in the basement of the church, probably dated to the mid-1850s when the church was built.
Because the Mass fell on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the schoolchildren took part in a special observance after Mass, including leading the entire congregation in singing "God Bless America."
News reports of the break-in brought forth an outpouring of generosity, Fr. Russ Kohler said later that day. He noted that Bishop Flores had used a chalice — with the design of a Celtic cross — that had been donated by Frank and Mary Murphy, members of St. Irenaeus Parish in Rochester Hills, after they heard about the break-in and theft of the chalices.
"It had belonged to Mrs. Murphy's great uncle, Msgr. John Fahy, who was pastor of St. John Parish in Newark, N.J. He had been in (World War II U.S. Gen. George S.) Patton's army as a chaplain, and had used it to celebrate Mass in several Nazi concentration camps they liberated. Of course, we are overjoyed with that history," Fr. Kohler said.
He also acknowledged the generosity of others who had come forward to help, especially noting Stuart Rich of Ameralarm Co. of Southfield, who had sent a crew to the church the afternoon of the day the thefts were discovered to install a motion-detector alarm system – at no charge to the parish.
And he expressed gratitude for the intervention of Col. Peter Muñoz, commander of the Michigan State Police, who assigned a squad of detectives to investigate places the stolen items might have been fenced.
One of the suspects the troopers turned up actually showed up at the church on his own accord Sept. 11 to tell Fr. Kohler he had bought some of the items before seeing a television news report about the break-in. While the tabernacle and chalices were not among those items, Fr. Kohler said the parish was at least able to get back the Russian icon and several other pieces.
He also thanked the many people who had been praying for him and the parish in the wake of the burglary. He acknowledged that he had been quite upset and agitated by the incident, but said, "An overwhelming calm came over me about 4 p.m., Wednesday (Sept. 10), and then I found out that the ladies of Fort Street Presbyterian Church had gathered to pray for me that afternoon. I asked them when, and they said about 2 p.m., so I told them it had taken almost exactly two hours for their prayers to take effect."
Most Holy Trinity Parish dates its beginnings to 1834, when the Catholic Church in Detroit purchased a former Presbyterian church on Cadillac Square, downtown, to serve as a hospital during a cholera epidemic. After the epidemic, the building became the first home of Most Holy Trinity Parish, Detroit's first English-speaking Catholic parish.
With most of those English-speaking Catholics being Irish immigrants, the parish built the present church building in 1855 in the area called Corktown, which had become home to most of those immigrants.
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