Name: Father Christopher J. Rossman
A Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in KS currently assigned as the Associate Pastor of Prince of Peace parish in Olathe, KS.
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In my continuing description of my new parish, Prince of Peace, I wanted to talk a little about our school.
Prince of Peace has a Catholic School for grades K - 8th. The school has 550 students making it one of the largest Catholic schools in the archdiocese. Because of the student population, each grade level has 3 classes except the 8th grade which only has 2 classes. The parish also has a pre-school with 150 children in its program. I've only had a chance to look at the school facilities briefly, but they are very nice. Each class is well designed and conducive to learning. There is a beautiful gymnasium and a very nicely stocked library.
I am looking forward to the beginning of school this fall. I have already had a chance to meet some of the students, however. This past school year, the classes of Prince of Peace chose to correspond with difference seminarians of the archdiocese. By God's Providence, Pattie Jabbour's 5th grade class choose to correspond with me. I received a letter from each student as well as the teacher. They were very friendly and I enjoyed reading each letter. I usually only send a single letter to the teacher in response due to my time constraints of a seminarian. This time, however, I decided to respond to each letter individually. Some of the students had asked about being a priest or religious and I wanted to respond to each of them. If I was going to respond to them it only seemed right to write a letter to each of them, which I did. Well, now I am their Associate Pastor and there is at least 20+ students that know their new associate's favorite food, TV show, movie, animal, etc.
My family and I will be going to Buffalo, Minnesota this weekend so I will not be posting again until Monday evening. My mom is from the Land of Lakes and so most of her family still live up there. Until next time...God bless.
I said my first Mass at Prince of Peace this morning in the day chapel. With that in mind, I thought I'd give everyone an idea of what the parish church is like. I have a few pictures that I will share and also wanted to give you a description of the church. Again, to see the full images, simply click on them.
The current parish church is a beautiful facility. Upon entering into the vestibule, you are presented with a glass facade that gives you a wonderful view of the nave of the church. The picture to the left shows the sanctuary of Prince of Peace. You can see that the congregational seating is in an arc around the sanctuary. The sanctuary is ample in size and the beautiful wooden altar is in the center. The baptismal font is on the left in the picture just below the cabinet on the wall containing the Holy Oils.
The interior of the church is very beautiful. It is a very large open space but not so much so that it feels cavernous. The church has a series of beautiful stained glass windows that were designed and installed by Joy Stained Glass Studios. The image of the window to the left is of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and is displayed over the sanctuary area. The stained glass windows are in a more modern style, but have also managed to retain that traditional aura of its imagery that is unique to stained glass. This image to the right is of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her crowning as Queen of Heaven and Earth.
Next time I'll give you an overview of the rest of the facilities at Prince of Peace. Until next time...God bless.
I am posting this early today because I will be in Kansas City this evening and staying at Prince of Peace (PoP) for the night. Today, I thought I'd give you the history of the parish as well as where we are at currently.
Prince of Peace Catholic Church was established in 1979 because of the growing population of the City of Olathe. It was established from St. Paul parish. Since St. Paul was located on the western edge of the City of Olathe it only made sense to establish Prince of Peace on the eastern edge of Olathe. The archdiocese purchases land on 143rd Street about a mile east of Mur Lin Rd and began construction of the parish in 1984. Construction was completed and Mass first celebrated on Christmas Eve in 1986. The population of the area continued to explode, however, and the number of parishioners continued to grow. Within 8 years, they had outgrew the church and began construction on the current parish, which was completed in 1996.
Prince of Peace parish is the largest parish in the archdiocese. It currently has 3500 families and over 10,000 parishioners. The church building seats 1200 people and hosts a number of events each year because of its seating capacity. It has been host to a couple of ordinations in the past and hosts the Johnson County Serra Club seminarian dinner each summer. We have 6 Masses on weekends. We have a 5:00 pm Saturday Mass and Mass on Sunday at 7:30 am, 9:00 am, 10:30 am, noon and 5:00 pm. We also have Mass at 6:15 am and 8:15 am on Monday through Friday with a Saturday morning Mass at 8:15 am only.
As you can see, I should stay plenty busy with a parish this size. Masses, baptisms, weddings and such should occupy much of my time, which is wonderful because I love celebrating the sacraments. Until next time...God bless.
Those of you who are Catholic and reside in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in KS are probably already aware of my parish assignment. However, dozens of my readers are not within the archdiocese (or this country for that matter) so I wanted to announce my assignment and give you a little background on the parish.
On Tuesday, May 29th Archbishop Naumann met with me at the Chancery Offices and officially assigned me to Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Olathe, KS. We could not discuss our assignment publicly until June 9th and since I left that weekend for my Branson vacation I haven't had a chance to blog about my assignment.
We take our assignments on July 13, 2007 so I have been spending some time learning about my parish, visiting the campus and slowly moving some of my stuff up there. So, over the next few days I am going to give you some information on my parish.
First a little history about Olathe. Prince of Peace was established in 1979. It was split from St. Paul parish as more and more people built homes in the Olathe area. Olathe is a suburb of Kansas City located 20 miles from downtown. Its population is 122,000 and it is the 5th largest city in Kansas. In 1979, the population was 37,258 but that was 20,000 more (a 107% increase) than 1970 when the population was only 17,917. However, it was evident that as more and more people moved to the suburbs the population was going to explode in the coming years. This was very true and by 1990, the population was 63,440 and in 2000 it was 92,932.
Tomorrow I will begin looking at the parish history itself and then I want to talk about the parish as it is today and what type of activities we have. Until next time...God bless.
I just wanted to post a quick entry to say that we returned from St. Louis this evening. The Mass at Cathedral Basilica this morning was a blessed and beautiful experience. It was made even more so by the fact that Fr. Morris, a teacher at Kenrick and friend of mine, concelebrated as did Msgr. Pins, who is the rector of Cathedral. Deacon Ralph, who served as one of the two deacons for the ordination and was the deacon for my 1st Mass (see photos in 1st Mass pics blog entry), was the deacon for the Mass. The whole trip to St. Louis was a wonderful experience. It is good to be back home though.
I will be making a couple of important posts this coming week. I want to announce and discuss my first parish assignment. I also want to introduce my readers to an online prayer network I have created. Until next time...God bless.
I returned to the City of the Arch this weekend. My family and I arrived in St. Louis yesterday evening. It was a nice drive and very relaxing. We had a leisurely evening and I got to take a swim.
Today, we went to Grant's Farm in the morning. Grant's Farm is 280 acres of land once owned by our 18th President, Ulysses S. Grant. Now owned by Anheuser-Busch, the farm hosts dozens of exotic animals that can be viewed either by walking or by riding the tram. The great thing about Grant's Farm is that the animals are not confined to small cages. They have all this acreage to roam around and graze. The only fences are the outer perimeter and a couple of fences that section off the land (so animals that don't like each other don't meet). The picture to the left is of a Belted Galloway but they call it an Oreo Cookie Cow.
This evening, I celebrated Mass at Queen of All Saints in Oakville, MO. QAS was my acolyte assigment two years ago when I was at Kenrick. Last year, I taught PSR classes to the 8th grade class who was preparing for ordination. It was great to be back at QAS. This is also the home parish of my close friend, Brian, so it was nice to see him again. After the Mass, the priests, Brian and friend named Rob and I went to a very nice dinner. It was a very enjoyable experience.
Tomorrow I will be celebrating Mass at the Cathedral Basilica at 12:00 pm. After the Mass, my family and I will be returning home. Assuming that I am not completely exhausted from the return trip, I will endeavor to make a short blog entry tomorrow. Until next time...God bless.
As promised, I want to post the pics from my 1st Mass. I celebrated my 1st Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Ottawa on the afternoon of May 27th. These pics were taken by my sister as were the ordination pics from the last post. Again, I'll give you a short description of each pic. To see the full-size images, simply click on the picture.
This first picture to the left is of Deacon Ralph proclaiming the Gospel. Deacon Ralph is the permanent deacon of Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. He came specifically for my ordination, serving as one of the deacons for the Mass, and as my deacon for the 1st Mass. I was very blessed to have Deacon Ralph here for the weekend.
This picture to the right is of Fr. Steven Beseau. Fr. Steve was pastor of Sacred Heart, my home parish, when I decided to enter seminary. He helped me to discern my calling, gave me great spiritual direction and guided me through the application process. I asked him to be my homilist for the Mass and his homily was outstanding. Again, I was very blessed to have Fr. Steve at my Mass.
In this next picture, I am praying the Preface with my brother priests gathered around the altar with me. This picture is a lead-in for the next
picture, which is during the actual consecration. I have just pronounced the words of consecration and am raising the chalice with the Precious Blood. This was a very powerful moment for me. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and by my pronouncing the words of consecration the simple wine in the chalice became the True Blood of Christ!!!
This last picture is my favorite. It is at the conclusion of Mass as we are all preparing to process out. All the priests are in a single row genuflecting at the foot of the sanctuary. A very cool picture that Froggy did a good job of taking.
Well, those are the pictures of interest for my 1st Mass. I am still awaiting the professional pictures from my ordination, but Froggy's pictures are the only pictures taken for the 1st Mass. There are a dozen more 1st Mass pics, but I simply chose a few that I thought were special.
I will be in St. Louis this weekend celebrating a Mass at the parish in which I taught religious education last year and at the Cathedral. I am bringing my computer with me, so there is a good chance that I'll blog at least once this weekend. Until next time...God bless.
After much anxiety (and patience) on the part of my readers, I present to you the ordination pics. I will post pics from my 1st Mass in my next post. I'll give a short description of each of these pics below and I'll do that same tomorrow. The pics themselves are just small thumbnails, but you can view the full image simply by clicking on it. All these pics were taken by Froggy Fotography (my sister took the pics...I am just teasing her). There are pics up to and including the laying of hands (after that, Froggy fell asleep <grin>). I am still waiting for pics from the professional photographer, so you'll have to wait until a later date for those.
The picture to the left is during the entrance procession. I was just hoping I didn't stab myself on one of the swords being brandished by the Knights! Actually, if its not obvious from the pic, I was pretty nervous and a tad bit terrified as well.
The picture to the right is me kneeling before the archbishop taking my oath of obedience. This occured after we made our promises (see Rite of Priesthood in the Archives section to the left of the webpage). For the oath of obedience, you kneel before the bishop and place your folded hands in his. He then asks, "Do you promise obedience to me and my successors?" I, of course, answered, "I do."
This third picture is of the three of us during our afternoon nap. We forgot to bring our nap blankies though so...oh wait. Sorry about that. Actually this is a pic of us lying prostrate while the congregation sings the Litany of Saints. Basically, the Church invokes the saints to pray for the ordinands and intercede on our behalf so that we receive the grace to be humble, holy and faithful priests.
In my next post I will put up some pics from the 1st Mass. At some point I will receive the professional pictures taken at the ordination and I will post some of them at that time. Until next time...God bless.
I have returned from a wonderful and relaxing week in Branson. My dad and I only caught 1 trout, but we had a great time. Because of the heavy rains in southwest Missouri, the Army Corp of Engineers was letting a lot of water out of Table Rock Lake into Taneycomo so the trout fishing was poor. However, we went to a couple of shows, went to the Bass Pro shop and walked the new Branson Landing outdoor mall, which has a lot of attractions other than the stores themselves.
Obviously I did not blog while in Branson. Most evenings it was too late when we returned to the cabin and I didn't have good phone reception which hindered my attempts to post an entry. So, to make up for the missed blogs, my next post will include numerous pictures from my ordination and 1st Mass!!! Until tomorrow...God bless.
I celebrated Mass at Holy Trinity parish this evening. You might remember that I have spent my last three summers there including last summer as a deacon. It was a wonderful experience to celebrate Mass for the people of the parish and especially to concelebrate with Fr. Tom Dolezal. After the Mass they had a reception with a cake that had my face on it!! I'd never seen something like that before. Tomorrow morning I am celebrating Mass in Greeley, KS. The parishioners there have been very supportive, especially their Knights of Columbus and the 4th Degree Assembly. I am very much looking forward to the Mass.
After the Mass tomorrow, my dad and I are going trout fishing in Branson until Saturday. Since I'll be away from my computer for the week, I will probably only make one or two posts via my cell phone. I'll be sure to make a post if I catch a world-class trout, but even if I don't I'll make a couple of posts while down there. Until next time...God bless.
As I had mentioned in an earlier blog, Bishop Marion Forst died on Saturday at the age of 96. Bishop Forst was the Ordinary of Dodge City from 1960 to 1976 when he resigned due to health issues. He moved to Kansas City shortly thereafter and was made the Auxiliary Bishop of Kansas City until 1986 when he retired. In 1995, John Paul II made him titular bishop of Leavenworth - the former seat of this diocese prior to it being moved to Kansas City in 1947. He was born in St. Louis and was ordained in 1934. He served as a priest in the St. Louis and Denver archdioceses as well as Springfield-Cape Girardeau. He attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council and was one of only a half dozen bishops alive to have done so.
That is the biographical breakdown of Bishop Forst, but the real Bishop Marion Forst was so much more than simple dates, places and events. Bishop Forst was such a kind, caring and gentle person. If you met him and didn't know the position he held in the Catholic Church you'd think he was a humble parish priest. He loved being a bishop, but didn't separate himself from others just because he was a bishop.
I had the privilege of getting to know him over the past few years as I worked on my MA thesis, which was on the 20th century history of the archdiocese. He was very generous with his time and extremely helpful in giving me a better understanding of the Church in the last half of the 20th century. In our correspondence, he was especially helpful in giving me a unique insight into the Second Vatican Council. As many of the obits and biographies recently reported, the Council was by far his greatest memory as a bishop. He mentioned this repeatedly and because of this, I was able to gain a much broader understanding of the Council. In fact, if you are interested in his insights into the Council, you can purchase his book, Daily Journal of Vatican II. The book is actually his daily journal he kept during the Council that was published at the encouragement of Archbishop Strecker.
Bishop Forst was a wonderful, friendly and humble man. He was someone who tended to say great one-liners. Most importantly, he was a man who simply loved being a priest and lived to serve the People of God. I will miss him as will all whose lives he touched. May his soul, and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Until next time...God bless.
Its after midnight, but I wanted to make a quick post. I've met many of our priests in the diocese and have had a good time getting to know them. We had a conference this morning followed by Mass. The afternoon was ours so I spent most of it checking for holes in my eyelids. I found none.
This evening we played a friendly game of poker and I won a little in the end ($6.70) so I guess that's not too bad for my second day at the retreat. That is about all I have for now. I do plan on blogging about Bishop Forst, but I need to gather my thoughts on what I want to say so I'll probably wait until after the retreat to post a blog on him. Until next time...God bless.
It seems that I actually have internet access here, so I will be able to make an entry to the blog while here.
Fr. Tod and I arrived in Atchison around 7 PM this evening. We got settled into our rooms and then attended the introduction meeting at 7:30 PM followed by Night Prayer and a social. Our speaker for the next two days is a Psalms scholar and will be discussing praying the psalms, especially in regard to the Liturgy of the Hours.
Our schedule is relaxed with Morning Prayer at 7:45 AM followed by breakfast, a conference and Mass at 11:00 AM. After the noon lunch, there isn't anything scheduled until 4:00 PM when we have another conference followed by Evening Prayer and dinner. Not too bad in my mind.
I do have some sad news to report, however. Bishop Marion Forst, former Bishop of Dodge City and Auxiliary Bishop of Kansas City in Kansas, passed away on Saturday evening. He was 96 years old. I considered him a friend because he helped me with some of the information for my MA thesis on the 20th century history of the archdiocese. He was one of only a few bishops alive who attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Bishop Forst was the oldest living U.S. bishop and had been Titular Bishop of Leavenworth (titular bishops are bishops who are not in charge of active dioceses and instead are bishops to former dioceses which now exist in title only).
May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Until next time...God bless.
Yesterday I celebrated the one week anniversary of my ordination. It has been an extremely busy week. Celebrating Mass every day has been unbelievable. Consecrating the bread and wine into the True Body and Blood of Christ is an experience that is both awesome and completely humbling. How can one not be humbled to their soul in calling down the Holy Spirit and holding the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in their hand!
I've only been ordained a week and I've celebrated or assisted in 6 of the 7 sacraments. I've celebrated baptism and marriage as a deacon. I celebrated Mass every day this week. I celebrated the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick less than 36 hours after my ordination. I celebrated the Sacrament of Penance twice this past week. I attended the ordination of my classmate, William Hennecke, and lay hands on him as do all the priests present. The only sacrament I've have not celebrated is Confirmation. Not bad for my first week as a priest.
Monday through Thursday I will be at our diocesan retreat at the Benedictine Abbey in Atchison, KS. I will try to post a blog at least one and hopefully two of those nights depending on whether we have internet access or whether I have to do it via my cell phone. Until next time...God bless.
p.s. Ordination and 1st Mass photos coming soon!
I'm making my blog entry via my cell phone again so this will be short. My classmate William was ordained this evening completing the ordinations for the class. My other 4 classmates were there and it was a beautiful Mass. I'll post more on the ordination tomorrow. Until next time...God bless.
