Blessed Sacrament Parish, Burton at 6340 Roberta Street, Burton, MI 48509-2438 US - History From 1982 Directory

Our Parish History CONCEPTIONAL DAYS OF BLESSED SACRAMENT PARISH The birth of a parish is filled with pains and joys the same as a birth of a child. Blessed Sacrament Parish was born in the year of the Lord, Nineteen Hundred Fifty Seven. Basically, It was taken out of Holy Redeemer's, Holy Family's, Holy Rosary's, and St. John the Evangelist's territories. Blessed Sacrament had been assigned definite boundaries---Davison Road, (North), Maple Road, (South), R.R. tracks between Dort Hwy. and Center Rd. (West), Irish Rd. (East). Boundaries for other parishes, however, were not so well defined in the past. First there were rumors about a new parish. I could trace back those rumors as far as 1953 when one of our founding members went to see Fr. Louis Gauthier, Pastor of Holy Redeemer, intending to get married; and he was told in a casual conversation that there was going to be a new parish established in the vicinity of his house some day and Seeley's Subdivision was hinted as the area of a new church, the name however was not given yet. Precipitation of those rumors started to become more and more frequent as the members of the Diocesan Planning Board were completing their work. The concept of a new parish on the East side of Flint was given birth upon reviewing census reports coupled with the extraordinary building expansion in the Flint, Michigan area during 1955-57. On the Northwest Side, (especially in the vicinity of St. Agnes), new house developments were at a rate of 200-400 per month. Because of the above, it was assumed by the Diocese that expansion would also occur in other areas of the city. It was felt that development would be likely to happen on the Southeast side. (Industry and Airport facilities would tend to suppress home construction on the Southwest). While these things were being considered, an 80-acre farm became available in what was said to be Lapeer Heights-as it developed, it was East of the heights. The land was purchased by the Diocese for subsequent development. Upon the report and recommendation of the Planning Board, Bishop Albers determined that a parish be established as far as possible on the Southeast side of Flint without interfering with Davisons', St. John Parish. The Diocese felt that the expansion of Flint would be so great in this area, that a parish would be needed in the near future. The Die was Cast I mentioned the pains of a birth. Just as I am interviewing more and more people about those early days of Blessed Sacrament's formation, I have to admit that there was pain in the hearts when they were realizing: "It is time to leave Holy Redeemer and start Blessed Sacrament." That pain was very real and some of you are feeling it yet. Surrounding Pastors were not disposed to release parishioners even if they lived in Blessed Sacrament's boundaries--this, in spite of continued pleas by Fr. Noeker; ignored or rejected were offers by Blessed Sacrament to pay tuition and transport children if only they were released. During 1960, Fr. Dunigan, Holy Redeemer's pastor, made the first announcement requesting those living in Blessed Sacrament s mentioned boundaries to begin attending Blessed Sacrament. The source of that pain was the very fact that for us Catholics the Church where we worship is not a building or an institution, but a spiritual home where we are intimate with our Loving God. The Parish is not an organization with our membership, but our spiritual family we belong to, where we are intimate with our brothers and sisters as we form and build God's family. Whenever you are told that you have to leave that spiritual home and family, you are hurt. It doesn't matter too much if it was said with compassion and tears in the eyes or in just a dry way; the inner pain is there. According to Canon Law, the Rev. Howard Noeker, Pastor of the Immaculate Conception Church of Three Rivets, Michigan, had an appointment with the Most Reverend Joseph H. Albers, Bishop of Lansing, on Thursday, June 13, 1957 and was appointed to be the founder and first pastor of a new parish to be known as Blessed Sacrament in the Lapeer Heights section of Flint, Michigan. A week later, Thursday, June 20th, he had another appointment with the Bishop. This time the Bishop traveled to Three Rivers, Mi. to complete the Canonical formalities. In Fr. Noeker's presence, the Bishop signed the foundation decree of Blessed Sacrament Parish and the day happened to be the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Blessed Sacrament. Seven days later, on Thursday the 27th of June 1957, the Dean of Flint's Deanery, the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry Mayotte installed Fr. Noeker in quite and unorthodox manner. The Dean gave Fr. Noeker a ride up to the point which is now the Northwest corner of our main parking lot, looked at him, waving his arms in almost a complete toward the meadows and said: "Well, here it is, your Parish, Church, and School to be, being confined by Transue, Lapeer, and Vassar Roads; 20 acres. Good luck to you! May the blessing of our Lord come upon you and remain with you in this task". Then they shook hands. These were the legalities prescribed in Canon Law; we were established. In the subsequent weeks, it became apparent that a handful of people, a little group started to form around Fr. Noeker as his co-workers in organizing the new parish. Day by day, there was an enthusiasm growing in their hearts as they were electrified by the recognition of the very fact that they became the frontier in the life of the Catholic Church. They knew that Holy Mother, the Church's growth is depending on them in the post-war, new economic and industrial era and opportunity. They were proud, they were joyful, they were spirited; they really experienced the Holy Spirit moving among them. I was talking about the joys of a birth that they really felt in their hearts. That joy prompted them to make sacrifices to the point where it was hurting. For them there was nothing too much, too hard, too heavy, too late, too early, too many, too few----Let this little description be a true tribute for those great and courageous people who were determined and brave enough to start to build a new spiritual home and spiritual family in which they can be intimate with their Loving God and with each other as His true family. One of Fr. Noeker's objectives was to locate and secure a temporary location for Mass so that he might begin building his congregation. To this end he visited the Bentley School Board, a body, though very kind and cooperative, was understandably not too anxious to let any church group use their facilities- (undoubtedly because of questions of separation of Church and State). However, after lengthy and often persistent discussions, Fr. Noeker won his point and use of the gymnasium for church services was permitted every Sunday. Immediately, Father set about the tasks of media announcements concerning the new parish, including the location and time of service, procuring folding chairs, ($1.00 each) from the League of Catholic Women, portable confessional and Altar. WIRTH PICKARD, a pilgrim parishioner, built a trailer with which all of the above was transported to Bentley School Gymnasium every Sunday where a church was set up for the day. Concurrent with this activity, a home was purchased on Denis and Lapeer Road on August 26. September the 2nd, 1957 our first pastor (Fr. Noeker) moved into his own rectory thus making unnecessary his daily treks from Fenton, Michigan, where he had been staying with an old friend, Fr. Beaham. The house was immediately modified to conform to parish needs with the addition of a breezeway (used as a parish office) and the interior finishing of the adjacent garage serving as a chapel where daily Mass was held. The very first Sunday Parish Mass was celebrated at "Saint Bentley's", as parishioners jokingly referred to the gymnasium of Bentley Community School, on September 8, 1957. The attendance was 246, with 80 communicants. The first baptism was administered on September 22, 1957, to Edward Michael Brasseur, son of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Brasseur. The First Daily Mass was celebrated on October 3, in the Rectory Chapel, and the First Friday Mass on October 4. There were approximately 50 parishioners who received Holy Communion during the First Friday Mass. In the Sacrament of Matrimony, the first ones to celebrate their Covenant were Mr. Thomas A. Payne and Miss Patricia A. Alexander. The first catechism class began on Sunday, October 6, 1957, conducted by the Dominican Sisters of Oxford. From this class, 35 public school children were enrolled for first communion. On October 7 and 8, the first classes were begun for grade school and high school students, kindergarten through 12th grade. The first death occurred on November 10, 1957 among the members of new Parish, namely Rosalie Pickard, wife of William Pickard. The Funeral Mass was celebrated on November 13. As the weeks went by more and more organizational meetings were held during the winter of 1957-1958. After a thorough search of the probable number of families as prospective members of the newly founded parish in the future would be, slowly a picture of needed facilities started to crystallize in the imaginations of the participants. Then two different groups of professionals were involved, namely Trend Associated, Inc., architects of Kalamazoo, Michigan, to prepare blueprints of the future buildings and provide an accurate financial picture of the task, and the other one the John V. McCarthy and Associates of Detroit, Michigan, professional fund raisers, to assist Fr. Noeker and the infant parish in the effort of fundraising to make the dreams come true. They prepared a very attractive fundraising booklet for every family and the kickoff date for the campaign to start was designated Easter Sunday, 1958. Instead of giving a description of the fundraising booklet, I decided to give the facsimile of its two most important pages as a document of our origins as a parish. (please see "Fr. Noeker Letter" from home page) (please see "Our Needs And Plans" from home page) As the pledges were coming in, the confidence was growing in our hearts: We would grow into a real parish very soon. And surely enough in the presence of a small, but prayerful congregation, on June 22, 1958, at 4:00 p.m., we celebrated the groundbreaking, as Father Noeker pushed the spade into the ground he had blessed just prior to that act. The construction went on rapidly and we witnessed the laying of the cornerstone on October 5. The great day of taking occupancy of our new building dawned on us on Easter Sunday, March 29th of the Year of the Lord, 1959, when we celebrated the first Mass in our newly constructed Church and the "Saint Bentley's" era, the heroic days, finally were behind us. When you are writing a parish history, you are searching for the first events, as well as for the fi,~t names. In my quest for the first of everything, I just came upon the first published list of officers of Blessed Sacrament Church Organizations. Here it is: (please see "first officers" from home page) I found a real gem in terms of a historian. In our archives, we have a few copies of the "Blessed Sacrament Church Directory and Yearbook/1962". This edition is a real glimpse back to those five years from the beginning days of our parish. Every organization gives a historical account of its own. I decided to copy those accounts here, and not to edit them, in order to preserve that original freshness and naivity when the writers were convinced that they were the makers of that parish history, rather than the accountants of it. And also for another reason, that they are filled with names and events of those legendary days. And I know that those names will bring so many familiar and dear faces you were very close to and intimate with, in this newly built spiritual home and spiritual family. l'tow here are those account in quotations marks. Enjoy them. (please see "1962 organizations" from home page) Then there was a decade, the whole decade of the 60's, a whole decade working like beavers, the whole parish, we, invested our hearts into the school. The Apple of our eye became the Blessed Sacrament Elementary School. Looking back to the 60's, we can see a very close-knit parish family who were constantly ready for any size of sacrifice. That community of members just gave their heart, time, skill, sweat: their best. Everything was just shining and promising. There was a special kind of enthusiasm, with a high level of spiritedness. All of a sudden everybody realized that a parish family was born out of those people who were included in different lists and roll-calls. It became exciting to come together and stay together. People could offer so much of themselves that it was interesting and entertaining to stay together for prolonged hours after coming back to the Church parking lot from Tiger Stadium, or from pilgrimages to St. Theresa's Shrine, etc. As well as, just after a bingo night was finished and Fr. Noeker would say "Well, a few more chairs for the school, for our kids". Who could write down now all those stories into a book that were told during those late hours while we were enjoying each others' company. No wonder the 60's are so attractive, so nostalgic for us, we feel that something very precious is drifting away from us on the glittering surface of that ocean that we call time. I have to mention one more thing about the 60's, those endless study hours in which we absorbed the outcome of the greatest ecclesial event of the 20th Century, Vatican II. Our parish exhibited a fairly balanced attitude of acceptance of the necessary changes in our sacramental and liturgical life without going into an unbalanced chase for just acting differently. We captured the spirit of Vatican II, in a way, that every one of us can live with it. Than all of a sudden toward the end of the decade a drastic change came about in the economic and social climate and scenario. The bright vision of an endless age of unlimited cheap energy was suddenly disrupted, as a consequence a possible energy crisis came to focus that caused running away inflation and hidden economic decline. The orders of the teaching sisters were hit hard too, on one hand by the new price structure of the marketplace and on the other hand by the declining number of vocations. They had to renegotiate their new, higher salaries and even diminish their numbers at our school. We had to hire new lay teachers with competitive salaries to that of the public school system. A very disturbing doubt started to grow in the hearts, expressed by this question: Is our parish strong enough to keep our school open and going. Smiles were gone from the faces and question marks were growing between pulled up eyebrows. Naturally two groups of people started to form. One was demanding to follow the common sense and solid financial judgement, saying: You can not run a school in the red indefinitely, it's time now to close it down. The other group was evoking heroism and sacrifice beyond the individual's means, saying: Let's tithe ourselves, let's give from our. substance rather than lose our greatest treasure, the school. At that point everybody was at a loss, everybody was hurting, but it was too late, there was no choice at that point. No wonder that this catastrophic situation destroyed the health of our deeply loved founding Pastor, Fr. Noeker. Who can withstand pressure of that magnitude day in and day out? This very young parish community at the same time lost its school and its founding pastor...much more than that: This very young parish community lost its hope, its vision of a bright future, its pride, its identity, felt very hurt, wounded and humiliated, and it was nobody's fault. The Blessed Sacrament School was closed at the end of the school year, June of 1971. Then came 1973, two parishes were merged Blessed Sacrament and St. Joseph Church was appropriated by the City of Flint for urban development purposes. In that faith community also a disaster feeling and psychosis appeared and developed rapidly. Due to the fact that they lost their spiritual home; naturally two groups of people started to form among them also. One group wanted to follow the demand of reality: judging themselves not numerous, not strong enough to maintain an independent ethnic parish. On the other hand there was the other group demanding heroism and sacrifice well beyond the individual's means, sacrifice from their substance in order to preserve and maintain their ethnic identity and independence. What did they feel? Same as the people of Blessed Sacrament: They were at a loss, they were afraid of the future, they felt threatened by the unknown. These two communities were united exactly 10 years ago on March 31, 1973. When Bishop Sullivan leading their auto-caravan brought the Blessed Sacrament that was consecrated in St. Joseph Church during the last Mass celebrated there over to their new spiritual home, Blessed Sacrament Church. This act symbolically merged the two churches. This was the situation ten years ago. Now we are looking back with a jubilant spirit together to these past ten years. What happened? The spirit and love prevailed I repeat: The spirit and love prevailed. There is no loss on anybody's part; there is a tremendous gain and growth. You people healed each other, You, people, restored hope and trust and faith. You amalgamated and rebuilt this faith community in an excellent and exemplary way. 1974 was a tremendously good year for us, we managed to build our brand new wonderful social hall and our rectory building. Next year we sold the convent at the corner of Lapeer & Vassar Rd. In 1976 we sold the old rectory to which so many nostalgic memories tie us. Now we all know that the Hungarians did not turn our parish into an obscure little ethnic downtown corner parish. They offered their own values and ethnic flavor which looks like an enhancement. They found their proper place in our faith community. On the other hand, we all know that there is magnanimity in this gesture that our parish gives a home for this special mission, we call Hungarian Pastorate: Responsibility for their evangelization. I think this is the proper spot to insert that little inscription that they put on the front of our St. Joseph Parish Hall. (please see "1974 hall" from home page)

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