Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Roots of faith, blooms of love
Roots of faith, blooms of love
Loved ones remembered, poor fed by St. Regis ministry
by Kristin Lukowski of The Michigan Catholic
Published September 25, 2009
|
Kristin Lukowski | The Michigan Catholic
One of the parish's many colorful gardens is adjacent to the playground. |
Bloomfield Hills - In a pocket of land in suburban Detroit, butterflies flitter from flower to flower, roses give off their strong fragrance, and tomatoes and peppers ripen in the sun.
It might be a nature sanctuary, but it's not - flowers and plants bloom all over the grounds of St. Regis Parish, Bloomfield Hills.
The "beautification ministry" started at the parish a few years ago with some of the grounds being turned into gardens, explained gardener and parishioner Beth Kinna. Using splits from parishioners' gardens and donations, flowers and plants replaced the standard bushes, and now cover a significant portion of both the school and church grounds, with all the work done by some 30 volunteers.
"It's not just a garden," she said. "It's important that people are involved. It brings together the youth in the parish and the elderly. Everyone shares a love of gardening."
|
Kristin Lukowski | The Michigan Catholic
Designer and master gardener Suzanne Krueger (right) picks flowers for parishioner Patty Hamilton, who was assembling them into bouquets for a parish tea party last month. |
Several gardens welcome parishioners and visitors to the church, including a full-sun perennial garden filled with colorful flowers and an evergreen garden. Stretching from the main entrance of the church to the parking lot and around nearly to the parish offices is one large garden, with a gravel path that winds through the plants. Part of that is made up of red geraniums, collected for Pentecost, and then planted. Kinna said she often sees children running down the path between Masses on Sunday.
A former privacy patio for the rectory, which has since been converted to the parish offices, has also been turned into a garden. The parish office entry garden boasts shade plants and statues.
Halfway between the church and school is a new memorial garden, filled with roses and hydrangeas that delight the nose of a visitor several feet away. All of the flowers are memorials to people who have died. After the committee buys the memorial plants, a picture is posted on the parish Web site for family members to send to others who may live to far away to visit the actual rosebush.
Turning toward the school, a visitor will see the west entrance garden for which the school's class of 2008 donated Louisa crab trees and more roses. Heading around the school, the bird and butterfly garden, planted in memory of junior kindergarten student Myles Beckley, graces one of the entrances; his classmates planted flowers in the classroom, which were transplanted that spring.
Around the other side of the school building is a vegetable garden for St. Christine Christian Services in Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood, which allows the patrons there to have fresh food, mostly tomatoes and peppers. Parish volunteers sign up for a week at a time to weed and harvest.
At the very back of the parish property, behind the school's playground equipment, is a small wildflower garden, with a sitting area.
The majority of the parish's gardens were planted from cuttings or extra plants from parishioners' gardens, which is why they look so full so soon after planting, Kinna explained. She also credited much of the gardens' success to St. Regis pastor Fr. Norm Nawrocki, who has supported the gardens from the beginning and will recommend the grounds beautification fund if a family having a funeral at the parish asks for a cause for donations.
Fr. Nawrocki said the gardens are a source of great pride for the parish. "They're quite beautiful," he said. "People truly enjoy them."
People now have places around the parish property to sit, perhaps pray or read, or chat with others. "It's nature - it's beautiful, serene, calming," he said.
He said the gardeners involved have found their way to share their talent with the church while helping to improve it. "It's a wonderful opportunity to do ministry," he said. "In this they feel they can make a contribution.
"I enjoy the beauty," he said. "I really do. I enjoy walking, standing in front of the church. It's really magnificent. I truly enjoy it."
Fr. Nawrocki said St. Christine's appreciates the vegetable garden, which staff at St. Christine's quickly confirms. St. Christine Christian Services director Larry Robertson said patrons of St. Christine's like the tomatoes in particular when they visit the center for coffee and pastries and relief from extreme weather. "We get a lot of people reporting that they use them," he said.
Kinna said much of the garden materials, such as the slate pathway, come from gardeners who move, for example, and don't want to leave their garden items behind. The lighting was part of a donation from the people of St. Regis, as well.
A master list of the various plants in the gardens is kept, and if someone calls with plants to donate, "We always find a place for them," Kinna said.
"It's become a ministry," she said.
|
