Bishop blesses chapel at St. Cecilia

By Msgr. James P. Moroney
Special to The CFP

LEOMINSTER – A new chapel at St. Cecilia Parish, dedicated to Divine Mercy and St. Joseph, was blessed by Bishop McManus Saturday.
The bishop began the 4 p.m. Mass by expressing his gratitude for “all who have made this chapel possible” and blessing holy water “with which we will be sprinkled as a sign of our baptism and by which the walls of the chapel will be purified.”
Later in the Mass he blessed the new chapel altar, asking that God make it “the fountain from which flows an unending stream of salvation, so that, as we come to Christ, the living stone, we may grow in him into a holy temple.”
While the idea for a new daily Mass chapel originated, practically, with a desire to save money on heat, it grew into a renewed devotion to the mercy of God and the guardian of our Savior.
The chapel, which is used for daily Mass and devotions, is separately heated and air conditioned. Special attention was paid to adequate air filtration and circulation in order to minimize the possible transmission of viruses.
Inspired by the devotion of St. André Bessette, the parish dedicated a statue of St. Joseph to commemorate the close of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of St. Joseph’s patronage of the universal Church. Brother André, the most prominent Canadian saint, consecrated his life to the guardian of the Lord and was the main inspiration to the building of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, the largest church in Canada. I like to think that St. André is smiling down at our little work in praise of St. Joseph and God’s mercy.
The chapel is also dedicated to Divine Mercy and is dominated by the image of Jesus as described by St. Faustina Kowalska from a vision in 1931. In the image, the Lord’s left hand points to his heart, from which rays of red and white emanate. These recall the blood and water which flowed from the side of the wounded Christ as he died on the cross and symbolize the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, by which our sins have been forgiven.
Each day at 3 p.m. the Divine Mercy chaplet and the rosary are prayed in the chapel in front of major relics of St. Faustina and St. John Paul II, the pope who established the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.
The reliquary of St. John Paul II contains a vial of his blood, while the reliquary of St. Faustina enshrines a piece of a bone taken from her body. The relics were provided with the assistance of Cardinal Stanislaus Dziwisz, former secretary of Pope John Paul II, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Krakow, Poland.
The dark blue ceiling of the chapel is ornamented with 85 stars, recalling God’s creation of “the stars of heaven and their constellations.” (Isaiah 13:10) The stars are arranged according to the configuration of the constellations as they appeared on Nov. 22, 2021, the feast of St. Cecilia, when construction on the chapel began. Each star was given by an individual or family in the parish, often in memory of a deceased family member or friend.
So next time you are in Leominster, please stop into the new chapel dedicated to the Divine Mercy and St. Joseph. It is the latest holy work of those who with Father Joseph E. Chicoine built the big church you can see from Route 2, and the latest example of those who have been answering God’s call from the Acadian shores of New Brunswick to French Hill in Leominster. All so that God might be well praised.