KNOX – St. Thomas Aquinas parish is throwing a birthday party, and everyone's invited. The guest of honor is the Blessed Mother.
On Sunday, Sept. 8, the celebration will begin at 2 p.m. with the blessing of the parish’s new Rosary Garden on the church grounds. The idea for the updated prayer location was cultivated by parish member Bernadette Schonka and pastor Father Stephen Loncar out of a deep love of the Blessed Mother.
According to Schonka, the garden is a continuation of the former nationally recognized Rosary garden just north of Knox, known as the Bowling Ball Rosary.
Bill and Linda Stage constructed a Rosary with 59 bowling balls as beads, on their property in 1989. An annual birthday celebration to honor the Blessed Mother was held on the Sunday closest to Sept. 8. That Rosary garden was listed in the book of Indiana curiosities and was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes television show.
The annual event ended in 2015 due to poor health of the Stage couple. In the years that followed, efforts to get the bowling balls and reconstruct the rosary on church grounds proved unsuccessful.
“I thought about what would make a beautiful medium instead of bowling balls,” said Schonka.
When she came across solar roses, she had the answer to her question.
Fifty-nine clear lens lights, shaped like a rose flower, now circle the garden with a statue of the Blessed Mother in the center. “With every Hail Mary is a rose to Our Lady,” she said.
Schonka and Father Loncar explained the scriptural references of roses and the Blessed Mother, who is also referred to as Mystical Rose. The Litany of Loreto, written in 1587, invokes Our Lady as “Rosa Mystica," our Mystical Rose, but veneration of Mary under this title has been present in the life of the Church since ancient times.
Father Loncar said that with the garden near the church, people can come and pray there any day. He said that the arrangement is adaptable so that he can move the lights to a nearby garden bed for a change of scenery.
The Sept. 8 celebration begins with the blessing of the new garden at 2 p.m. A video message by former Diocese of Gary and current Diocese of Madison Bishop Donald J. Hying, and a presentation by Sean Martin, coordinator of catechesis and faith formation for the Diocese of Gary entitled, “Why Mary?” will follow. At 3 p.m. The Living Multiple Language Rosary will take place around the new garden, followed by the Litany of Loreto at 3:40 p.m.
A potluck picnic will be held at 4 p.m., which includes a birthday cake and the singing of “Happy Birthday” to the Blessed Mother. Guests are asked to bring their own picnic set up and lawn chairs.
Schonka said between 200-400 people attended the Bowling Ball Rosary annually. “I don’t know what to expect, but we want this (event) to grow each year,” she said. “This year we are reaching out to all the children of God. I don’t care if you have a lot of faith, little or no faith, or what your faith is, Jesus gave her to us from the Cross. Come and celebrate Mary’s birthday.”
Caption: Father Stephen Loncar, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas, and parishioner Bernadette Schonka pose along side the parish’s new solar rose Rosary Garden on Aug. 3. The garden blessing will be part of the Blessed Mother’s Birthday Celebration on Sept. 8. (Deacon Bob Wellinski photo)