Church trivia question: Do you know what an aumbry is?
Allan Okert does. He helped handcraft one for Our Lady of Fatima Church in honour of the Coquitlam parish’s 75th anniversary.
An aumbry is a small recess or cupboard for storing sacred objects, and the new one installed at Our Lady of Fatima is on display as a symbol of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the parish’s milestone anniversary.
“Anything I do for the parish, I always steep it in a lot of prayer,” said Allan Okert, a parishioner and leatherworker who built the aumbry with friend and fellow craftsman Renzo Carbonel.
The artful wooden aumbry, hung on the wall just to the left of the altar, is home to the Coquitlam church’s chrism and other sacred oils.
The solid oak piece weighs 24 pounds and contains a glass case for the oils. Its border was engraved with a laser to create a pattern of vining leaves.
Although the parish will officially turn 75 on Oct. 25, its 75th anniversary was celebrated on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13.
The current crucifix on the structure, added in time for the aumbry to be installed for the anniversary celebration is temporary. Okert is working on a leather mural to put in its place, carving and stamping the material to create an image of a dove descending through open clouds and rays of light.
For Okert, a hobby leatherworker, this project for the Church stands out from his other pieces, and it’s an honour for him to be part of the legacy of Our Lady of Fatima Parish, established in 1946.
“It’s for God. This is special. This is something different. It has to be the best of my abilities, the best of what I can do. It’s using the gifts he’s given me to praise him back.”
A church lectern and a carrier for a statue of Our Lady are also his handiwork. With every project, he said he’s felt the direction of the Holy Spirit, guiding his hands and his mind toward the finished product.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller visited the francophone community to celebrate the anniversary with a few in-person participants and many online viewers for the celebration.
“It’s important, I believe, that we mark such landmarks as a parish family and to recall with gratitude the outpouring of blessings that the Good Lord has bestowed on you,” he said.
The parish was erected with the name Notre Dame de Fatima in 1946 and the first Mass was celebrated in a rectory on Dec. 8 of that year. In 1947, three Sisters of the Infant Jesus started a parish school, the first French immersion school in the archdiocese.
The present church wasn’t built until 1959, 13 years after the parish was established.
In the 1980s, the Our Lady of Fatima community began to take an active part in the Festival du Bois, a festival celebrating the French-Canadian heritage of the Coquitlam neighbourhood of Maillardville.
“You inherit a great past on which to build up your parish,” said Archbishop Miller.
“Each of you should think about what has taken place in this family of faith, but also in your life, personally,” he said.
“Since 1946, how many infants have been dipped here in the saving waters of baptism? Perhaps you have. How many children formed in the Catholic faith, confirmed in the Spirit, because they attended your wonderful school or PREP program? How many candidates or catechumens have been received here into the church? How many couples, how many among you, were married here in the Lord? How many penitents have been reconciled in confession to the Father who is rich in mercy? How many sick and elderly have been anointed to heal their infirmities and to unite their sufferings with Jesus in the sacrament of anointing of the sick? And how many of your beloved loved ones have been sped on their way to eternal life by the holy rites of the Church?”
Sacred oils are involved in many of these vital church ceremonies, and now at Our Lady of Fatima they have a new and beautiful home.
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