One Week On

It is a week since Father Wagner collapsed and was taken to hospital. Since then, his parishes of Holy Rosary and Visitation have had hour-long holy hours/prayer vigils, alternating every night.

These are continuing.

At Holy Rosary, we somewhat impulsively put his biretta on the altar. Many people were profoundly moved by this gesture, so it has remained there since, only being removed to the Marian altar when Mass is celebrated.

Last night, Deacon Teskey described it as akin to the “riderless horse“.

It’s not quite the same, of course, as Father is still in hospital, a week later. His condition was described this afternoon as “critical… with no improvement”.

Here are some links that may prove helpful:

• CaringBridge: Medical and prayer updates maintained by Father’s family
• Go-Fund-Me: set up by a family member to help pay the family’s expenses while they remain in Tacoma keeping vigil
• Local news story
• Holy Rosary Parish
• Visitation Parish

The parish sites, in particular, are useful for obtaining information about the ongoing prayer vigils.

Please continue to pray. The family has requested that you do so asking the intercession of Venerable Cardinal Wyszynski.

This past week we’ve had temporary priests come in to celebrate our Masses and the Saturday Confessions. Thank you very much!

Our Friday early morning Mass has been canceled for the foreseeable future. Even though we had priests willing to fill in, those with the power to make these sorts of decisions decided to cancel instead. So far, this is the only Mass that we’ve had to remove from the schedule.

Our weekday Confession schedule seems to be still up in the air.

We will have to handle the usual weddings, baptisms, and funerals as they come up.

Meanwhile, in between deadlines and starting a new job and helping out at the parish, Francine and I were only able to actually visit Father once. We chatted. We prayed. We cried.

There have been so many visitors that the nurses have periodically restricted visiting to family, before relenting again.

The parish Facebook posts have gone viral, with more than 150,000 reached to date. Masses are being offered for Father throughout the Seattle archdiocese and throughout Poland and who knows where else. Assurances of prayers for Father have come from every continent except Antarctica¹.

How long this will continue is in God’s hands. If He wills a miracle of healing, it will be done. If He wills that it is time for Father to join the heavenly choir to sing the eternal liturgy with the angels and the saints, then that too will be done.

Meanwhile, we keep vigil and we pray.

1. Presumably, the penguins are having trouble typing on their keyboards to let us know.