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Dear Friends in Christ,

When we break ground, the very action itself calls to mind many things fundamental to human life. We think of God the Father, drawing life up out of the primordial clay, and fashioning all living creatures, with man and woman as the beings most reflective of His own being. We think of farming and gardening, of breaking the soil and enriching it, so that seeds may be planted, crops raised, and food harvested. We think also, of the place where we will rest, after we die, and near to God, await the final day, when our bodies will be raised, and we will be present together to witness the final judgement and the ending of time and space as we have known them. And as Catholics, we think above all, of how our Lord has shared all these traits of human life – of how He was created by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of how He was born, grew up, lived and died, knowing hunger and enjoying food just like any other man, and we recall how upon His death, His friends laid Him in the tomb, in earth, from where, on the third day, He arose.

Today, as we think about what we are doing, about how on this site, where we have gathered to ask God's blessing, a new church will rise, we also realize that here, on this ground, and in this church that will be, God and man will continue to meet, according to the plan given us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In this Church that will be, our children will be baptized into new life, they will hear the word of God as they grow, and we who nurture and protect them, will add to the substance of our own lives, as we share in the Eucharist, as we grow older, and as we depart this life, through the same portals where our children have entered.

In this Church which will rise, the separations of time and space, and of Heaven and earth will cease to be – for in the Church we do meet God, and in the Church, all His beloved sons and daughters are present, whether in the here and now, or from their place in the hereafter. The awareness of these things – of this great meeting and confluence of the our life on earth, and our life in the Holy Spirit of God – the awareness of these things is what makes us gather today, because we want God to bless and make holy, the ground on which this church will rise, because we know, that within its walls, the most important, the most meaningful, the most holy things that we will ever do and witness, will take place.

And because of that, we want this church to be known first and foremost, as our gift to God – a gift ,that from its very beginning, He recognizes, and He blesses.

So let us proceed, with faith in our hearts, with confidence in our hopes and plans, to ask His blessing on this site, to encourage the hearts of the Faithful to support this work we are beginning, to protect all who will work during the construction phase, and to bring us together again, in the not-too-distant future, to celebrate the work whose beginning we mark on this day.

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