This year marks the 40th anniversary of the choir. During the concert, the choir presents sacred sounds of Advent and Christmas.

Admission is free; however, a free-will offering will be collected to support the ongoing mission of the choir.

For more information, contact Jack Gerding at 419-396-7107 or music@olcshrine.com or visit the shrine’s website at www.olcshrine.com.

This year marks the choir’s 40th year of presenting this musical program amid the beauty and stunning acoustics of the Carey basilica.

Choir rehearsals are to be at Christ Lutheran Church in Carey, with the next one scheduled for Oct. 25. All rehearsals begin at 7 p.m. and last approximately two hours.  Rehearsals rotate between Tuesdays and Thursdays.

For more information, contact Jack Gerding, director of music ministries at Our Lady of Consolation, at 419-396-7107 or music@olcshrine.com.

An estimated 10,000 people attended the vigil, which concluded the shrine’s annual novena leading up to the feast. The celebration brings thousands of Catholic pilgrims of various nationalities and rites to Carey for nine days of prayer each year.

Chaldean Catholic immigrants from Iraq made up the largest group in attendance, with most traveling from the Detroit area.

Conventual Franciscan Father John Stowe, rector of the shrine and basilica, explained that a group of refugees from Mosul who settled in Michigan years ago decided to revive a tradition they had in their old country of making a three-day pilgrimage for the feast of the Assumption.

“They were going to come to a place about the same distance and the same direction as they would have from home,” Fr. Stowe explained. “And when they set out in that direction, they found the shrine in Carey, and just found it as divine confirmation of what they wanted to do.”

Though he said Chaldean Catholics have been the majority group since around the 1980s, Fr. Stowe noted the novena has appealed to many different ethnic groups over the years, beginning with the immigrants from Luxembourg who settled the area and brought the statue of Our Lady of Consolation to Carey in 1875. Italians, Hungarians, Lebanese and Albanian Catholics have also had a large presence at different times in history, and the shrine hosted a Syro-Malabar rite Mass this year for Indian Catholics.

“I think that the name of Our Lady of Consolation is a very comforting, obviously, and consoling way of understanding Mary,” said Fr. Stowe. “And every year people come back with stories of what they’ve experienced here.”

The rector said he has heard many pilgrims recount how their prayers have been answered at the shrine.

“We had a 15-year-old here last week that was on a list for a heart transplant,” said Fr. Stowe. “When he went for the surgery, they said ‘Your heart is fine.’ ”

Amera Yousif, a Chaldean Catholic from Shelby Township, Mich., said she believes she has had problems solved through her prayers to Our Lady of Consolation.

“The celebration here makes me feel I have more faith in God and Jesus,” said Mrs. Yousif, who has been attending the vigil for about eight years. “We love to come here because we feel everybody welcome us here from different countries.”

A candlelit procession to Shrine Park with the statue of Our Lady of Consolation preceded the vigil Mass, with Bishop Leonard P. Blair leading the rosary.

At the end of Mass, Father Stephen Kallabat, pastor of Mar Addai Chaldean Catholic Church in Oak Park, Mich., delivered greetings in Chaldean to the congregation.

Bishop Blair, who celebrated the liturgy, told Fr. Kallabat that while Latin Catholics “do not always appreciate sufficiently the history and heritage of the Chaldean Church and the other churches of the East who enrich so much the Catholic universality of the church,” they do understand how much suffering there is in Iraq, particularly among Christians.

“I wanted to assure you on behalf of all of us in the Diocese of Toledo of our solidarity and our prayers for you and for your people and for all those who are suffering, particularly those who are suffering for their faith,” said Bishop Blair. “We are always close to you, and you are in our prayers and in our love.”

As the congregation applauded in appreciation, Fr. Kallabat thanked Bishop Blair and told him “this is the best and only thing that we need.”

The Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation holds its annual novena in celebration of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven Aug. 6-14. (Chronicle file photo)

This celebration is the shrine’s largest event of the year, with parishioners and pilgrims from all over visiting to seek peace, to pray together and to find consolation in their lives and the lives of those in need.

“Mary’s assumption to heaven reminds us that we are all called to share in the life of the Risen Christ,” says Conventual Franciscan Father John Stowe, rector of the shrine.

Each weekday evening and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday the novena preacher is to speak. This year, the novena features Conventual Franciscan Father John Raphael Hadnagy, previous rector of the shrine.

Fr. Hadnagy is a native of Woodbridge, Va., and entered the Conventual Franciscans in 1981. He completed undergraduate studies at St. Louis University in St. Louis and graduate studies at the Washington Theological Union in Silver Spring, Md. He made solemn vows as a Conventual Franciscan Friar in July of 1988 and was ordained to the priesthood in October of 1990. Since then, Fr. Hadnagy has ministered in parishes in Lorain and Carey, Ohio, Grand Rapids, Mich. and Sellersburg, Ind.

He has had the privilege of serving as chaplain for pilgrimages to shrines including Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje, Knock (Ireland), Garabandal (Spain), Czestochowa (Poland), Loreto (Italy), Rue du Bac (Chapel of the Miraculous Medal-Paris), St. Faustina’s Convent in Poland, San Giovanni Rotondo (Padre Pio’s tomb in Italy), Lanciano (site of first Eucharistic miracle in Italy) Santarem (site of another Eucharistic miracle in Portugal), the basilicas of SS. Francis and Clare in Assisi, Italy, the basilicas of SS. Peter and Paul, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Mary Major (all in Rome), and the catacombs of St. Callistus and St. Priscilla.

Fr. Hadnagy has been involved in a ministry of healing for more than 20 years. He continues to offer this ministry to parishioners and pilgrims in order to help people become more aware of the love and mercy of God in their lives.

The actual celebration of the feast of the Assumption is Aug. 14 with a candlelight vigil procession beginning at 9 p.m. from the basilica to the Shrine Park, where the Bishop Leonard P. Blair presides at Mass.

On Aug. 14 and 15, Masses are in the upper and lower basilica and in the original shrine church in English, Italian, Chaldean and in the Syro-Malabar Rite from India. The sacrament of reconciliation is to be held on the side lawn of the basilica throughout the two days. On these two days there are also devotions with processions to the Shrine Park beginning at 2:30 p.m.

The novena weekday schedule includes Masses at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. The sacrament of reconciliation is each evening at 7 p.m. Evening novena devotions begin at 8 p.m. (excluding Sunday at 2:30 p.m.) with a novena prayer, outdoor rosary procession, homily and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Sunday Masses are at 8 a.m., 10 a.m. and noon.

For more information, contact the shrine at 419-396-7107 or visit www.olcshrine.com.

The Archangel is scheduled to complete a partial reenactment of the first transcontinental flight Sept. 17, 100 years after the inexperienced, 32-year-old pilot Calbraith Perry Rodgers embarked on the journey across the U.S. in his Wright EX biplane, the Vin Fiz.

St. Wendelin students have been working on the Challenger II sport plane under the guidance of physics teacher Ron Bowerman. The project was unveiled to the public June 5 during an open house at A & L Compaction, a company owned by St. Wendelin parishioners Al and Lis Leibengood that provided the students with a space to build the plane.

The Archangel is painted in the school colors of black and gold and the name is inscribed on the control panel with a credit: “This aircraft was built by students, staff and friends of St. Wendelin Schools, Fostoria, Ohio, USA.”

Sarah Walas, a recent graduate of St. Wendelin, and other students who worked on the plane were excited to see the project finally coming together.

“It’s awesome,” said Ms. Walas. “We started it when we were working on individual parts,” she said, adding that “when you’re just holding two pieces of pipe and a few rivets” it’s hard to picture those components ever coming together to create an airplane.

“It’s weird. We’re like, we worked on the inside of this, and now we see the whole finished thing,” said Katelyn Schiefer, another recent graduate. “We’re like, we were a part of that.”

Ms. Schiefer said she learned a great deal about precision through the project.

Working on the plane also helped illustrate many of the practical applications of science, something Mr. Bowerman has always emphasized in his classes.

“He gave us a problem and then we had to solve the problem by working on the plane itself,” explained Rodney Park, an incoming junior who worked on the plane.

“Mr. Bowerman is always trying to get us to figure out what we need to do to make the plane better,” added Ms. Walas. “So we were doing a lot of really practical science while we worked on the plane. It wasn’t a lot of equations; it was a lot of ‘look at it and figure it out.’ ”

Incoming junior Philip Streacker said building the airplane also involved a great deal of “grunt work.” He summarized the process with the phrase, “Sand, punch, drill, rivet, repeat.”

Though students were able to earn some class credit for working on the airplane, most construction was done outside of school hours.

Work began on the ultralight aircraft in the summer of 2009. Several adult volunteers from the community have assisted with the project, including home plane builders Mike Kramb and Harry Bott and an aeronautical engineer and former student of Mr. Bowerman, Adam Flick.

Many donations and grants supported the project, including a $10,000 Toyota Tapestry grant in 2009 and a $5,000 donation from Larry Ball McDonald’s Restaurants that paid for the engine and other needed components to finish the plane this year.

Larry Williams, president of the Lindbergh Foundation and chief executive officer of BRS Aerospace in South St. Paul, Minn., was also on hand at the open house to present a donated ballistic parachute for the airplane that he said is worth between $5,000 and $6,000. He explained that if anything goes wrong in flight, the parachute can be deployed to bring the entire airplane down safely with its occupants.

Mr. Williams congratulated the St. Wendelin students for having “the courage to undertake a project like this,” and he related their work to Cal Rodgers’ triumph over the life-threatening challenges he faced as he flew across the U.S.

“I’m encouraged here today to see that your passion has developed into the science and the engineering and the discipline that goes along with building an airplane,” said Mr. Williams. “That’s an amazing accomplishment. There’s very few people that can actually say that.”

Getting students interested in science, technology and engineering and helping them see the practical side of science has been an important goal of the project, said Mr. Bowerman.

“These kids have learned how to do assembly processes, they’ve learned about flight, they’ve learned about thrust, drag,” he explained.

The teacher has been using aviation to teach the principles of physics in his classes for many years. He serves as volunteer director of special projects for the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company of Dayton, an educational foundation dedicated to sharing the history behind the Wright Brothers and their airplanes, and on the board of the affiliated, nonprofit First To Fly Foundation.

The Archangel was originally to serve as the chase plane for a reenactment of the Vin Fiz flight that is being organized by the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company.

Mr. Bowerman’s students at St. Wendelin built ribs last year for a model of the Vin Fiz that was to be used for the reenactment.

However, Mr. Bowerman said the Vin Fiz replica is no longer to be flown due to the high cost of insuring antique aircraft. Instead, the Archangel is to be used as the principle airplane in the partial reenactment.

Data collected during its flight from Fostoria to Dayton is to be shared with students and teachers worldwide for use in experiments.

After the reenactment, the airplane is to be donated to the Kenya Wildlife Service to monitor wildlife in preserves.

“This is an angel in the sky looking down on wildlife to cut down on poaching,” Mr. Bowerman explained. “It will be an ongoing benefit to that part of the world.”