Ave Maria!
This is an article by Janice Steinhagen from the local Connecticut newspaper the Hartford Courant on the building of our bell tower at our Griswold friary. There are more pictures on the Griswold Friar’s Facebook page.
Franciscan friars in Griswold are building a 3-story stone tower to house their community’s bell.It could be a scene from a medieval manuscript: monks in long grey robes mixing mortar and hauling it up to the top of a 3-story stone tower with rope pulleys. But it’s from modern-day Griswold, where the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate are on the home stretch of construction on the bell tower that has taken more than a decade to build.This year’s springtime weather has meant rapid progress on the project after a long hiatus, said Father Dominic Murphy, FI, the community’s vicar. “People like to see the friars working on it. It’s something we put ourselves into,” he said.
The facing stone was donated to the friars by two local families from fieldstone and walls on their properties.Three of the community’s nine members, including Murphy, have learned the skills of masonry to assist a professional mason in setting the facing stone around the cinder-block substructure. In recent months, the facing stone has slowly but steadily crept up the side of the tower toward the crenelated, or toothed, top.
Construction on the tower began in 2006, when the foundation was dug, and continued in February 2008 with the foundation’s construction. Two years later, the cement-block structure was begun, and stone facing got underway the following year but was halted due to lack of funds. “We had only worked on it a couple of months until we found out we couldn’t afford it, that it basically was going to be impossible to continue,” said Murphy. “But then we ended up paying off our mortgage.” With just one professional mason instead of a whole crew, and friars themselves providing much of the labor, “we’re able to afford that.”
Over the tower’s entrance is a Latin inscription taken from the biblical Song of Songs, or Canticles, which refers to the tower of David: “a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men.”Fr. Murphy said that “tower of David” is an ancient metaphor for the Virgin Mary. The tower was designed to refer to the architecture of castles, with its Gothic arches, crenelated top and narrow “arrow slit” windows, he said.
A marble statue of the Virgin Mary will eventually be installed on top of the tower.The tower was designed to house the bell which has been waiting in the friary’s courtyard and was recently moved to a spot nearer the tower.
The bell, which came from a Catholic church in New Bedford, Mass., that closed, was cast in Baltimore in the 1880s. Once the bell is hung in the tower’s belfry, it will ring out to call the faithful to daily Mass and to mark the Angelus, an ancient prayer in honor of Mary which is traditionally said at noon. The tower will also house a meeting room.
The friars, whose community is based in Italy, established their novitiate in Griswold in 2000 at the Marian Friary of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located in Colonel Brown Road. The novitiate is the second step in discerning a vocation to religious life, said Father Murphy. After a year as a postulant, prospective friars spend their novice year “entering our life more fully, with more intense training.
“At the end of the year, the novices take first-year vows to live a life of poverty and obedience. Friars make their solemn vows three or four years later, he said. While only one novice currently lives in the Griswold community, the friary is expecting four or five new novices to enter in September, he said. Father Murphy said that the friars would still welcome tax-deductible donations toward the completion of the tower, since the fund for building materials is rapidly being depleted. Donations can be mailed to the friary at 199 Colonel Brown Road, Griswold CT 06351.
Source: Stone bell tower at friary in Griswold on the home stretch – Hartford Courant
