GUEST BLOGGER - A SPECIAL INVITATION

Today's blog is written by Mr. David Stavarz, seminarian for the Diocese of Cleveland.

We, as human beings, oftentimes make things more complicated than they need to be. I would actually say that, in general, we tend to make the whole of life more complicated and busy than it needs to be. A good portion of our younger years is filled with schooling - of studying, test taking, and paper writing. After graduation, our lives are filled with schedules, meetings, and long work hours. Careers in business, marketing, politics, the medical field, engineering, and the like require refined skills and immense learning and seem very complex to those not within those particular fields. In today’s technological age, our heads are filled with news of events that happen all around the globe and to be a good citizen we can sometimes think we need to constantly know what is going on in the world. Sometimes, doesn’t it seem like life should be more simple?

When it comes to religion, Catholicism is a faith that can seem especially complicated. In Catholicism there are loads to teachings, doctrines, documents, heresies, councils, popes, saints and so on that can seem to make living the Faith a very involved and complicated reality. But does living a good Catholic life really mean knowing all the little Catholic details?

It is certainly important that we know the Faith and know the Faith as best we can. Growing in our understanding of Catholicism can truly transform our lives. But the standard of living a good Catholic life isn’t just knowing every theological detail and being able to articulate the complexity of the Faith at any time. Living the Catholic faith, in today’s world especially, is and can be much simpler than we sometimes make it.

So what is essential to living a good and simple Catholic life? What can simply ground our faith to make it not just a complicated list of things to do and know? 

What makes our faith powerful and simple is a living relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s it. When we truly realize this relationship in our lives it breathes life into our every action and becomes the reason for our existence. Relationship is what helps us to live a good Catholic life. St. Therese of Lisieux knew this good life lived in relationship as “The Little Way”. She knew that a simple faith was best lived out in love, mercy, and devotion to Jesus in small ways everyday.

One of the greatest and generally lesser known ways we can come into a closer relationship with Jesus is by strengthening our relationship with Mary, His mother. In the Scriptures we do not hear much from Mary, but what we do hear from her is profound and forms the core of what our faith life should look like - namely, trust, self-gift, and mercy. Mary is one of the single most important persons in the Church behind Jesus not because of how she made faith more complicated, but through her example of how to live a powerfully, simple faith.

Fr. Michael Gaitley is a nationally recognized Catholic priest and writer who knows very well the importance of having Mary guide us to leading a simple life devoted to Christ. Fr. Gaitley also believes that having a relationship with Mary will lead us to encounter Jesus especially as He is the source of Divine Mercy. Mercy is what living a simple, yet powerful, faith looks like.

From June 23-25th Fr. Gaitley will be leading a retreat at Walsh University on Mary and Mercy. Throughout this weekend retreat, Father will help show just what a simple and devoted relationship of faith and mercy looks like, particularly through the example and intercession of Mary and other saints such as Therese of Lisieux, Maximillian Kolbe, and John Paul II. 

Fr. Gaitley wants you to see that the time is now for you to live a simple and real faith that is full of love and mercy. Maybe it’s time to strengthen your faith by making it a little less complicated and more about a simple and living relationship with Jesus, the Divine Mercy. If you want to grow closer to Jesus and Mary in your faith life please consider this retreat. This retreat could change your life forever. It could lead you to a life of faith that is simple, powerful, and renewed. 

I KNOW IT DOESN'T MATTER BUT . . .

We’ve all heard it a thousand times so let’s all say it together: “The Church/parish is not a building, it’s the people.”  Yeah, yeah, I got it and intellectually believe it.  But you know what?  At night I still dream about my home parish.  Not the new building but the one in which I grew up in on Hopican Avenue.  Similarly I am mightily attached to West Akron and the building IN

WHICH the parish of St. Sebastian worships.

 

This Sunday we will be celebrating as a Universal Church the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the mother Church building of Church buildings.  I will grant you that if some crazed lunatic bombed the place to smithereens (thanks spell check, I don’t know that I ever spelled that word before) the Church will still exist fully intact though perhaps a little ticked off.  But the fact that we have this celebration means we are kind of blushing, shuffling our feet, head hanging a little with a smirk on our faces saying, “Well, yeah, buildings do kinda, sorta mean something to us even though theologically we could completely do without them.”

 

One of my favorite quotes:  “God does not need cathedrals.  But we do.”

 

So I took Sebastian on a walk through my home town the other day.  I wrote about doing this a couple of summers ago.  The point of this particular walk was to see God’s Magic City Church.  This was formally Sts. Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church founded primarily for the Slovak community.  It was absolutely built in the WRONG place -  a flood plain and was regularly flooded.  But the building was a little gem though the renovations after Vatican II were less than stellar.  It is (was) a tiny Romanesque building and would have made some kind of great shrine or some other use if it weren’t built where Wolf Creek enjoys overflowing its banks.

 

Anyway, on our way there we passed the former-former Sacred Heart Church which is now a non-denominational church.  This is the building in which I cut my teeth.  It is mostly in pretty good shape (though they removed the tile roof and replaced it with a shingle roof which robbed it of much of its character.)  So the congregation there must be doing relatively alright.

I just found this video that showcases the organ from my home parish that I tried to obtain but at the time the current owners did not want to sell.  Now some church in Texas will have it.  Tears at my heart . . .

 

Next we passed the old St. Mary, formally the Polish parish in town.  Never a remarkable building it now looks pretty sad.  The non-denominational congregation there could use some paint and other general maintenance to keep the place looking good.  Who knows how long it will be viable without a huge influx of cash.

 

Then there is God’s Magic City Church.  There was a fire there recently.  The area where the sacristy was is completely gutted.  There is no roof or windows left, just a brick shell.  The nave of the main church is burnt through and the cross seems to stand miraculously though precariously on the charred main beam of the roof.  I know it’s just a building but something about it make me feel incredibly sad.  It’s more than it just having been a beautiful building worth keeping around.  It is sad to see a place that roofed so much good so savagely devastated.  Like spilled milk, seeing something that represents such goodness so utterly wasted is somehow disturbing. 

 

Is the “Church” less for having lost a building?  No.  But we have lost a symbol of our mission.  A touchstone that reminds us to keep on track.  Another relic resigned to the memory of the current generation. 

 

No big deal.

 

And huge deal.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MAKE SURE YOUR WINDOW IS CLEAN AND CLEAR

One of the images of Mary is that of a window.  One does not look at a window, one looks though it at something else.  Mary is a window through which we look to see her Son.  Another image of Mary is that of the moon.  The moon is a cold rock.  But when the sun hits it, it gives a glorious brilliance for us to see on earth on a dark night.  So Mary’s brilliance is in that she reflects her Son to us.  “My soul magnifies the Lord.”

 

In the same way this next paragraph (66) of Lumen Gentium states it, William Wadsworth once said more poetically is that Our Lady is “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”  She is our exemplar par excellence.  Where Jesus is a divine person, Mary is fully human and so is set at our head to lead us in the way of fully following her Son.  Such has been the case since the very inception of the Church.  This is attested to in Luke where Mary says, “All generation shall call me blessed.”

 

A devotion to Mary is essentially different from the devotion given to the Trinity.  A devotion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an end unto itself.  The buck stops there so to speak.  God is the object of all true worship.  Devotion to Mary is a pathway to a deeper understanding and love of the Trinity.    

 

Think of it this way:  You might have a particular devotion to a preacher that simply wows you.  You might follow this person around, attend many services, and listen to numerous recordings of sermons and teachings.  But if the person’s preaching only leads you to like that person more deeply, that person has failed.  The inspirational talks are supposed to be a pathway to heaven and entice you further up that glorious trail.  True and loving devotion to Mary is to do the same thing.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 63 - 65

 

Wow.

 

If you didn’t want to read this whole chapter about Mary, these last three paragraphs will carry the day.  They are awesome.  They explain well why we Christian Catholics (and as of late even much of the Protestant Church) thinks Mary is the bomb.

 

Now, obviously Mary is close to God right?  She is, after all, the mother of Jesus (Who is God) and she is “full of grace.”  In the other direction she is close to the Church.  She is a symbol of the whole Church in faith, charity, and unity with Christ.  She does what we all strive for – to be full of grace.  Mimicking her our Catholic Church is the womb in which new sons and daughters of God are conceived and born just as Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, both through the action of the Holy Spirit.  She remains chaste, loyal to God alone and so does her Church in perfection. 

 

Interesting how we speak about the Church remaining every pure and spotless – “without wrinkle.”  And we also speak about how we are the Church and “we” are certainly not without spot or wrinkle.  In fact, we quite desperately need to see a dermatologist.  In one sense, we stop being Church when we sin.  And it is that Church, both as community and as an organ that provides guidance and grace, that leads us back to that purity and unity.  In that way she is our spotless mother as was Mary Jesus’.

 

So why do we hold her up and try to follow here example?  It is she who gives us an example of how to be united as Church to her Son.  When we preach about Mary, when we pray for her intercession, we follow the example of how to be united to Him.  She is the perfect fingerpost to her Son.  Her whole being magnifies the Lord.  She is a window through which we see Him.  To, in any way, honor her, is ipso facto to be lead more deeply to her Son.  And that is who we are to be as Christians to others.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: ITS COLD OUTSIDE. COME CLOSER TO THE FIRE

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 61 & 62

 

I have a friend who became a Universalist Unitarian Minister.  For a long spell we would write letters back and forth asking each other questions of faith and compare answers.  He had the idea that some day we would compile all of the letters and put them in book form but the project kind of fizzled out. 

 

Around this time the title Mediatrix for Mary was being bandied about more than usual (though it is a title afforded her in Vatican II) and it was causing consternation in certain circles that were concerned that too much power was being given to this human.  One of the questions received from my friend expressed a certain amount of uneasiness with the Catholic Church seemingly to be granting Mary a godly status, as if becoming a part of the Trinity, which of course would now be a Quadernity.  Anyone the least steeped in true Catholic theology would know this is impossible to do and remain a Catholic, but there were concerns none-the-less.  I find this understandable.

 

But God always works in concert with His people.  For example He does not baptize us in secret without our knowledge, consent, and cooperation.  In fact, it requires the community to do this.  (You can’t baptize yourself.)  So God (Who is so powerful He can work outside of His sacramental system) awaits our cooperation and man (Who is so weak he can do nothing without God’s power) must say yes to God.  This is why we have a priesthood.  Yet (almost) nobody thinks that having priests acting in God name, celebrating the sacraments, and speaking in His Name is taking away from God’s power or majesty.  The case is the same for Mary.

 

Mary, for her part, said yes to God’s requests.  She gave her body to house the God child.  She presented Him in the temple to the Father.  She raised him and stood by Him in His ministry, Passion, and death.  In a “wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior restoring supernatural life to souls.”  In this way she is called our Mother, not to compete with God, but to show His power breaking into the world just as we are all called to do.  Christ remains our one true Mediator, but Mary, in her singular role (as similarly any minister who baptizes brings life to a soul) plays a significant role.  Her role has universal significance and continues to this day and so we call her “Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”  Her role is clearly subordinate to that of her Son, but by becoming closer to her who is so close to God, we come closer to her Son just as coming closer to the heat brings you closer to the fire.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: TYING UP ADVENT

Paragraph 56 of Lumen Gentium

 

God is so cool.  In the same way He allows us to make up for sin by our asking forgiveness just as He allowed us to sin by an act of our own free will, so also is Salvation brought about.  In Eve, we have a person who chose to act against God by an act of her free will.  In Mary, we have a person who chose to radically unite man and God together by an act of her free will.  Thus, as Scripture says that Eve became the Mother of all the living since she was our first mother, Mary again becomes our Mother since it is she, through saying yes to God, brought all of us a life of grace. 

 

Someone recently was telling me that one of their favorite images of Mary is “Untier of Knots.”  Eve’s knot of disobedience is untied by the Virgin.  I saw this images for the first time at the bookstore at St. Paul Shrine this past month.  Still learning new things!

 

Happy almost end of Advent!

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: NEVER COUNT YOURSELF OUT

Now here’s a case when I will use the term “the spirit of Vatican II” and think it has merit.  As we head into the last throws of advent (or perhaps slow boil of advent would be better,) we enter that part of Lumen Gentium that makes clear Mary’s role in salvation history – Totally unplanned which makes it cool.

 

One of the reasons the Harry Potter books were so popular was that it held out hope that even if it seemed completely unlikely, there is a chance that you are special; your ordinary life was masking great power, notoriety, talent, and all that.  So can you think of being a young girl in a backwater town, dirt poor, and of no note?  What if, in actuality, your life was actually part of one of the greatest stories ever told – of the greatest family lines in history – of a dynasty that would last forever?  And look at you sitting at home wishing something exciting would happen in this one light town.

 

The story concerning Mary goes back to Genesis (para 55 of LG).  There will be a virgin and a conquering of the serpent.  In Isaiah further prophecies are made.  Throughout Scripture, a blurry picture becomes clearer and clearer until one night it snaps into sharp focus on a young, faith filled woman, by the announcement of an angel.  From obscurity she is plucked, though in God’s eye she was never out of the center of His plan.  From her our God is given flesh and entrusted to her care until He could go about the business of saving us from our self destructive ways.

 

(This is not in this paragraph but my own thought.)  You, Christian, are not much different.  Scratch just below the surface there is greatness.  It is not in your wealth, your ability to command, your ancestry, or your prospects (or lack thereof!)  All that will pass and be forgotten.  But like in a C. S. Lewis novel, you have already been named a king or queen with great dignity, inheritance, and rule, and it will only come to light for the faithful who remain true to their nature and enter into the kingdom of our heavenly Father.

WILL THE REAL MARY PLEASE STAND UP

Happy Feast of the Queenship of Mary!  It struck me the other day how many depictions of Mary that we have in the rectory and in the church.

 

I did not dare go into the school or this presentation would have doubled with all of the classroom statues and what not.  The one above is a plaster statue that sits outside of the chapel in the rectory.  It doesn't actually belong to us.  We are "storing" it for another priest.  But why not have it out and appreciated.  The tapestry below is in the rectory chapel and is a souvenir of mine from our choir's concert tour in Italy.  I take it to the church on feast days.

I remember being somewhat young and going to a parish that had Mary depicted as an African woman.  My initial (private, thank goodness) reaction was, "That's not Mary."  Of course it was a ridiculous thought because we have not the slightest idea of what Mary looked like.  She was most certainly not the porcelain skinned woman we most often see her as. 

 

The object is not to get the picture factual, but to portray some truth.  That, in large part, is what icons are all about such as the one above.  Not much attention is even given to correct proportions of facial features but to suggest theological truths. 

 

What should our depictions of Mary lead us to?  Not to appreciate a particular face but to fall in love with who she was.  It does not really matter what she looked like.  What is important in liturgical art is that it leads us to what made her special and to what (and to Whom) she leads us.

 

For some reason there are about a half a dozen pictures that will not transfer to my blog.  Maybe it is for the best.  The above which hangs in the rectory is one of my favorites.  It is so simple.  It provides a moment of rest to a busy day whenever I pass it.  

 

 

The statue below has an exact replica in front of the rectory (one of the pictures that did not turn out.)  Legend has it that someone once stepped on the gas instead of the break and took Mary out.  She was repaired but the driver insisted on replacing her.  So below is the new statue and the old with some barely visible cracks through it now sits in front of the loggia of the rectory.

Things could not get more different than the statue above.  Mary is relative of Mr. Goldfinger. Ra ra ra ra ra.  It is a nice enough statue and goes well with the church.  I do not find it particularly enticing as a focal point for devotion.  Perhaps that is why Mary is so widely depicted.  She is the universal saint, a saint for everybody.  Could one depiction really capture her uniqueness and universality?  Perhaps there is a Mary depiction out there for everybody.

 

And above is Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Certainly here is a different depiction of our great saint.  But the Church universal has come to love her in this depiction yet Mary certainly was not an Indian looking woman.  But I wouldn't disguared this depiction of her for anything because it does tell us something about her and more importantly about God.

The finaL picture below is of the Cosmic Madonna, a signed print by Salvadore Dali that hangs in the rectory.  The strange cross between Mary and a what appears to be church architecture and perhaps some elements of the cosmos is not a warm fuzzy.  This is not a Mary to be crowned or have flowers set in front of.  Yet it tells us of some aspects of Our Lady that are none-the-less compelling.

 

May Mary, our Queen and Our Mother bless your day and her depictions bring you peace, joy, and insight into God, her, and you.



HERE'S THE DOOR, AND HERE'S THE STEEPLE; OPEN UP THE DOORS AND THERE'S ALL THE PEOPLE

So Bishop Richard Lennon announced Tuesday last that he will not involve the diocese in an appeal of the Vatican’s ruling that 12 parishes in the diocese are to reopen. It would have been a very expensive and time consuming endeavor and bring more hardship to the diocese. His decision seems to be the wisest considering the circumstances.

That being said it will not be as easy as just opening the doors, turning on a light switch, and dusting off the pews. The whole process will be terribly complicated and have far reaching consequences throughout the diocese. Here are some of the challenges to face:

Let us take a local example to St. Sebastian. St. Mary parish is on the list for reopening. In my humble opinion it is one of the most architecturally significant buildings in our diocese and so I am pleased that it has a second chance. But it is exactly that: a chance, not something assured. With the parish itself there will be the task of getting the parish started. There have been no employees, no staff, no parishioners, and no income for a couple of years. It is one thing to start a parish meeting in a gym and building up to something great; it is another to start with the heavy burden of significant buildings that need lots of attention.

Very few Catholics live in the parish boundaries since the highway came through and so bringing people back will not be so easy – which also means surrounding parishes may start losing people. Nobody living outside the parish boundaries can be forced to return (and since in this diocese we are very lax about where people attend anyway, those who have moved on to other places who do live in the boundaries will not be forced to return if they choose not to.) When the Akron parishes were first formed, you would be refused membership in a parish in which boundaries you did not reside. That made it easier to start something.

Much of the portables from each of the parishes are in an undisclosed warehouse in Cleveland for safe keeping. (Knowing how abandoned churches have been vandalized and robbed in the past, this was a wise decision.) But all that has to be shipped back (at some expense from some place) and then organized once again.

There is nothing at the parish for Mass. No wine, no bread, no bulletins, no copy machine contracts, no soap, no toilet paper, no cleaning contracts, no extra light bulbs, no pest control, no one working on the grounds, no missalettes, no up to date books with the new translation of the Mass, no secretaries, not maintenance men, no musicians, no repairs have been made to pianos or pipe organs, so forth and so on . . . There is not so much as a Mass schedule or a confession schedule . . . How does one get the word out?

Then are those things that one does not think about. Since the current entities will be dissolved, in this case the parish known as St. Bernard-St. Mary, insurance records must be changed, bank records must be change, utilities, so forth and so on. Then there is the matter of sacramental records: Where will those who were baptized, married, confirmed, etc, be recorded if the combined entity is dissolved and reestablished as two parishes?

The parish will also be saddled with the responsibility of funding itself as well as making sure that it is a vibrant parish. There will be significant repairs that will have to be made to the buildings. Grand though they may be, they needed sky rocketing repairs before the closure, they will need even more now after being left mostly vacant for two years. That will probably be the biggest hurdle of all. Please pray for these parishes that they can see through this hump. There is no money coming from anywhere else . . . those funds simply do not exist. The monies raised from the diocesan capitol campaign are already designated and legally obligated in other areas. And despite what people might think, the diocese is definitely NOT sitting on bags of money without anyplace to spend it.

There will be changes for surrounding parishes also. Will the pastor at St. Bernard/St. Mary be able to remain? How will the cluster be re-designated? Where will 12 additional priests come from? Will smaller parishes that have parochial vicars (such as St. Sebastian, St. Francis, St. Augustine) no longer have that luxury? It will of course mean that the surrounding parishes that enjoyed an increase of persons as well as resources may now see a reduction. What if the new (or rather old) St. Mary Parish decided to start an extraordinary form Mass? Can this city support two such Masses? Would people at St. Sebastian return to their former parish or would we drain from St. Mary? If Fr. P. is pulled from this parish to cover all of the extra posts available would there be enough priests who know the extraordinary form to cover both parishes?

It may seem so, but this is not to discourage the potential good that may come of all of this. It is offered in the same way that one might talk to a teenager who wants his own car. There’s more to driving than driving – there’s insurance, there’s maintenance, there’s the cost of gas, there’s keeping the car clean . . . And re-opening a parish it is more than just throwing open the doors (as some have said. I must say I laughed with the city of Cleveland passed a resolution to have Bishop Lennon reopen Catholic parishes by Easter. 1) Not so easy. 2) So much for separation of Church and state.) It will be a challenging process – will require prayer, patience, understanding and sacrifice on everybody’s part – even those not directly involved - if this project is going to be successful.

So let’s to it.

MONDAY DIARY: TAG SALE - YOU'RE IT!

Every once in a while there is an estate sale in our neighborhood. I like to go not because I need anything (because I don’t) but because I enjoy seeing the architecture of some of the houses around here. There was an interesting tag sale this past Saturday. As you may be aware from reading this blog, about a year ago Saint Mary parish and St. Bernard parish combined to become St. Bernard – St. Mary Parish. Bringing these grand institutions together meant that there was some redundancy in “things” and so there was to be a tag sale at both rectories on Saturday.

Friday night I was at a bon-fire with a number of Akron priests when this was announced. Saturday was scheduled to be a busy day but there was some time later in the afternoon when I could sneak away. I wasn’t so interested in “stuff” as I was to see the places anyway.

St. Bernard was my first stop. The rectory had obviously once been rather grand with wonderful woodwork, soaring ceilings, stained glass windows, and spacious rooms. Over time it became rather tired looking and much of the woodwork had been painted over and is now pealing. Random pieces of furniture filled the rooms. If you were going to buy a house, this would be the place you looked at and thought, “Wow! With some work (and cash) this could be a really nice place in which to live!”

Fortunately there was nothing I wanted to buy. That is always a danger in such places. The things that would have interested me were not for sale. They were selling were things one would find at most yard sales; incomplete sets of flatware, the odd glasses, a mismatched chair.

A quick drive out to the Saint Mary proved to be much the same wares. That rectory was in the school building. I had never been through much of the rectory. It seemed like it might be a bit trying at times and reminds me to be less critical of my living arrangements. Out the back door of the kitchen put you in the main hallway of the school. Could you imagine hearing all those feet and chairs scraping over your head all day long?

There were people there who used to be employed there and they put on a cheery face though I know it must have been difficult. It was for me when we broke up the family house after Grandma and Grandpa died. I remember getting the key from my Dad and just sitting in the house remembering everything that took place there. I have happy memories though I cannot go back. I made that mistake once and the people living there currently take very poor care of the house. The grand front porch is starting to fall off and the screen door is smashed. Fortunately these rectories seem as though they will be treated much better.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: WHILE IT LASTS - A TRIP UP THE BELL TOWER

As promised last week, we will begin our trip up the bell tower of Saint Mary Parish in Akron. The parish is slated to close this June. But first, a quick peek at the interior. Here is the high altar. This mosaic is in the center of the sanctuary just in front of altar of sacrafice.

We did not have much light but this picture will still give you an idea of what the church interior looks like.

Look up! Here is a shot of the ceiling. Not a spot is lacking in detail.

This is from the altar looking toward the choir loft and pipe organ.

These are actually in the wrong order, this picture of Fr. Pfeiffer was on the way down. This is the story before you reach the bell chamber. The bell is still rung by hand. The rope that runs through the floor is right next to Father.

This is a shot from the bell chamber itself. Way off in the distance you can see the steeple of St. Bernard Parish in the heart of downtown Akron with whom St. Mary is merging.

The inscription on the bell reads, "HY STUCKS?EDE - BELL FDY CO. - ST LOUIS MO - 1915. DONATED BY THE CHILDREN OF SAINT MARY PARISH.

I just thought this was an interesting picture. This is the giant whell that rings the bell.

This is how you get up most of the way. Our shoulders touched the center post and the outside rail at the same time. It is very narrow (and dirty of course. Would be a bell tower ladder if it were clean?)

Well, that's it ladies and gentlemen. If you are from out of town I hope you enjoyed the climb with us. If you are in town - GO SEE THE PLACE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

Just a reminder: Easter Monday is the G. K. Chesterton play at St. Sebastian (Zwilser Hall) in Akron at 7PM. Come one come all!