E.V. woman’s craft gives church display of faith

Catholic parish leaders in Gilbert could have easily gone to the catalog and ordered a shiny "monstrance" to display the consecrated host that Catholics believe is the transformed body of Jesus Christ. Monstrances can be fetched for as little as $150, while some Web sites offer bejeweled, gold ones for as much as $26,500.

But parishioner Mary Josephs had her own ideas for the young parish, founded six years ago and more than a year away from meeting in a building on its own campus.

For 2 1/2 years, Josephs has painstakingly cut, pounded, soldered, sanded and polished raw silver into a monstrance that will be presented at the 9 a.m. Mass on June 29 to St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church at its temporary meeting place, Gateway Pointe Elementary School, 2069 S. Delatorre Drive. It will replace one the parish has borrowed from another church for its adoration, or "holy hour," which is carried out at the chapel at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center on the first Friday of each month.

Josephs regularly attends.

Her dream is that once St. Mary Magdalene builds its church, it will have space set aside for a 24-hour adoration chapel, where parishioners can come at any hour of the day for prayer and meditation. Several Valley Catholic churches have such chapels where a consecrated host is on display within the "lumina" or the center of the monstrance (from the Latin "monstrare" meaning "to show").

"When I started making jewelry, I was inspired because of my love for that particular devotion, so I wanted to make something for the church," she said. "The most meaningful thing would be the monstrance."

She shared her idea with the Rev. Greg Menegay, her priest, and was given the go-ahead.

In 2004, the Gilbert woman started taking jewelry-making classes at the Metals Edge Studio in Scottsdale, under the instruction of its owner, Carol Berger Taylor, a jewelry-maker since 1974 who has taught in her studio and for Scottsdale Parks and Recreation classes for 27 years.

Two years into her avocation, Josephs, a physician's assistant, decided to put the making of earrings, pendants and pins on hold and to start work on the monstrance.

She said she had been told by a previous instructor that she would need at least 10 years' experience in jewelry work before she could move on to larger projects. Instead, she found Taylor supportive.

"I had been very discouraged until I came to Carol," Josephs said. "She has been a very encouraging instructor, although this venture was way beyond my experience."

Taylor, daughter of a Holocaust survivor and creator of extensive Jewish metal art and jewelry that she sells, led Josephs through the steps.

So week after week, she worked from flat sheets of silver, in a slow process, to shape the parts of the monstrance, seeking pieces to flair, match and fit. "This would be too narrow, so I took this other disk and hammered and hammered," Josephs recalled. "They sent me to the back room because I was making too much noise with the hammer."

Josephs estimates she has more than $2,000 of silver in the monstrance, but she cannot tally the hours she has put in the work both at the studio and at home.

"With the work she had done on this, I call it a labor of love," said Menegay, her priest. "Mary is very devoted to the church, and, of course, to the sacrament of the Eucharist. She has really just put her all into the project to create this monstrance for the community."

For a new church that is short on the trappings it needs, the monstrance will be a welcomed addition, he said. "We are still in the process of working on building our church, so there is a lot that we don't have," he said. "For her to do this is great. It will be a gift to the parish that we'll use for many years to come."

The church of about 1,600 registered families anticipates breaking ground this winter for their first building on 20 acres the parish owns on Williams Field Road and Parkcrest Avenue in Gilbert. The multiuse structure won't lend itself to an adoration chapel, Menegay said. "But eventually, when we build the church, our goal will be to have a 24-hour chapel," he said.

Catholics believe that Christ is substantially present in the "blessed sacrament," or the host, or wafer, blessed by a priest. It is to be given the same devotion or adoration accorded to Christ himself. A priest removes it from the tabernacle, or repository, inside the church, blesses it and serves the host in wafers to parishioners during Masses.

For adoration and holy hours, a blessed wafer is inserted in the glass center, or lumina, of the monstrance. Believers are reminded of Christ's night of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane when he called on his disciples to remain with him and watch over him, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch over me" are his words. (Matthew 26:38) But moments later, Christ found his followers asleep, and he lamented, "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" He called on them to "watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

Popes have issued numerous passionate appeals to believers to engage in eucharistic adoration. For example, the late John Paul II said, "We represent those in the world who do not know Jesus during our Holy Hour of Adoration." Pope Benedict XVI has said, "God is waiting for us in Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Let us not keep him waiting in vain."

And the popular Catholic theologian and early TV personality Bishop Fulton Sheen noted, "Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are proceeded by a personal encounter with him in adoration."