GRACE Center opens with bishop's blessing

By Tanya Connor  | The Catholic Free Press

UXBRIDGE – A bereaved family and their pastor pointed to God – as well as their loved one – as they opened a new building named for her.  

Bishop McManus blessed the Grace Rett Athletic Complex and Education Center, located behind St. Mary Church and Our Lady of the Valley Regional School, after celebrating Mass in the church Sunday. The 7,500 square-foot center is for school and parish activities.  

OLV basketball player Grace Rett set a world record for consecutive indoor rowing shortly before she died in a motor vehicle accident on Jan. 15, 2020, the day after her 20th birthday. She was on a training trip in Florida with the College of the Holy Cross women’s rowing team.  

Her sister, Brianne Rett, a Le Moyne College student, cut the ribbon in front of the GRACE Center Sunday. 

“You feel Grace everywhere in here,” she told media members who gathered around the family afterwards in the foyer. And, she added, God is present in quotes displayed.  

Above the gym entrance is the Scripture verse Grace Rett got tattooed on her arm on her 18th birthday: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). 

This verse also appears on a mural Brianne designed, with sketches of her sister’s athletic activities and quotes from Grace’s workout journal. 

“To be a champion, you must live like one,” says one quote. Says another: “Don’t be on a team; be a team.” Brianne said it was peaceful to go over her sister’s handwriting, which she transcribed digitally for the sticker that forms the mural. 

The mural is an accurate tribute, said Marilyn Willand, Grace’s principal at OLV, who is now retired. She and others were also viewing a case of memorabilia from the athlete’s life. 

“We wanted the cross on the building back lit  to symbolize Jesus, and Grace’s light, too,” said her mother, Mary Jo Rett, as members of the media honed cameras and microphones on the family. 

When Father Dennis Rocheford, now deceased, baptized Grace, he held her up and sang, “This little light of mine,” Mrs. Rett told The Catholic Free Press. She said she always told Grace to let her light shine. 

Preaching at the Mass, Father Nicholas Desimone, pastor of St. Mary’s, where the Retts are parishioners, said he doesn’t know why tragedies like Grace’s death happen, and that “we would rather have Grace with us here still.” But, speaking of the day’s Scripture readings, he said God is love and he is close. 

“Only by God’s providence can good come from our experience of suffering and loss, can empty vessels be filled to overflowing, can water become wine, and can a small Catholic school like ours do something big for the greater glory of God,” he said. 

Father Desimone said that when Jesus transformed water into the best wine, the head waiter suggested that something new and unexpected had happened. And it’s happening still, as the center fulfills a dream (Grace wanted a gym at OLV) and shows commitment to Catholic education. He said Grace’s family, friends, school community members, even strangers, raised more than $3,700,000 for the center, which needs less than $200,000 more to be completed. 

Still to be done are painting, installing bleachers, and equipping the concession stand, said OLV Principal Edward Reynolds. But, he said, students started using the building Tuesday for classes, basketball practice, the drama club and the Irish step dance club. 

The Father Dennis J. O’Brien Academic Wing honors the diocesan minister to priests who lived at St. Mary’s. Father O’Brien died unexpectedly July 17. The wing also honors some educators he worked with, the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Sisters of St. Anne.  

The bright, beautiful center is “truly an embodiment of who Grace was,” Mrs. Rett said in a talk and “thank you” at Mass, as her husband and other daughter stood by her.  

“All who spend time there will be able to better themselves physically, intellectually and spiritually,” Mrs. Rett said. “It is not just a ‘home gym’ - it is home.”  

“It’s kind of surreal ... all of the details finally coming” together, Christopher Rett, Grace’s father, told the media. He said their first home game will be played there soon. 

Brianne Rett said she’s happy for the students; “my whole class wanted a gym too.”  

“I think it’s going to be super-exciting,” said Izzie Kay, a sixth-grade basketball player at OLV who had met Grace and heard stories about her. “It’s just awesome to have a gym dedicated to Grace, because she was really amazing … a great role model.”