Thank You and Bless You, Father Rayder
Dear Editor: For the New Year, I’d like to take this opportunity to share my appreciation for Father Peter Rayder, parochial vicar for American Martyrs Church. Every week, he has a column in our Church bulletin offering thought-provoking comments on our Catholic faith and life in general.
I remember him in my prayers daily because I realize he has his own physical affliction, which he graciously accepts as God’s servant, and helps me to deal with mine and remember that adage, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Because of him and his wonderful sense of humor, I’m able to reply to anyone who says, “You look good for your age,” with “Compared to whom?”
He is a true blessing to all parishioners and a reminder of how lucky we are to enjoy his column every week. God bless him, and God willing, may he bless us with his wisdom for many more years.
Constance Dowd
Oakland Gardens
Remembering Bishop McDonnell Memorial H.S.
Dear Editor: I enjoyed reading the article in The Tablet’s “Brooklyn is Pro-Life” special section concerning the new playground installed at St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf (“Brooklyn School for the Deaf Has Playground Designed for Students’ Needs,” Jan. 31).
However, we wish it mentioned the fact that the school is in the building that was originally the home of one of the best all girls Catholic high schools that ever existed in the Diocese of Brooklyn, Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School.
The school was affectionately known as “Bishops” by many of the girls that were fortunate enough to attend the tuition-free, scholarship high school.
In fact, the name Bishop McDonnell is still associated with the edifice, as boldly engraved in the stonework above the building’s entrance.
This year would have been the 100th anniversary of the high school, and we are in the process of organizing a reunion in the building itself on Sept. 26.
One of the things that some of our alumni have talked about is the possibility of trying to reestablish a new all-girl, all-scholarship high school within the diocese. Wouldn’t that be great?
Maryann Demaso
Maspeth
A Winter Heating Emergency in Ukraine
Dear Editor: I want to thank Father Michael Perry for reaching out to show his interest in the heating crisis here in Ukraine. As it will still be below freezing for many days, I wanted to update him and your readers with an overview of our situation.
It’s a humanitarian crisis affecting over a million households, and although it is individual families that suffer, the problem operates at the building level.
Over 1,000 apartment buildings in Kyiv are without heat because the Russians have destroyed power-generating facilities and transformer stations.
Soviet-era buildings rely on a city-wide system: several immense heating plants send hot water in huge pipes across the city to the large apartment buildings. Some of these plants still function, but the system relies on electricity to run the pumps inside the building.
So, if a building doesn’t have electricity, then the heating water in the basement can’t get up to your apartment’s radiators. And regular water won’t get to your sink above the sixth floor without a pump.
Electricity is now rationed to a few hours a day. For this reason, the power crisis in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and other cities is an infrastructure problem that is not easily solved. People who have a boiler and autonomous heating can use a battery power station, but the majority who rely on central heating don’t have that option.
There are some solutions. At the neighborhood level, we provide charging stations for shelters and emergency “resistance centers” in Kherson, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, where people come during the day to get warm and charge devices.
Because of demand and shortages, devices for families, such as rechargeable power stations, large batteries for apartments, and power banks for phones and computers, have become much more expensive. Some people can still afford them, but some cannot.
Ukrainians are being resilient, as usual.
Jeffrey Wills
Lviv, Ukraine
Editor’s Note: Jeffrey Wills is a professor at Ukrainian Catholic University and a founding member and vice president of the board of directors of the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation (UCEF) in Chicago.