The blessing falls on March 19, which is the feast day of St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death
By Dan McWilliams
Bishop Mark Beckman dedicated a columbarium at St. Mary Church in Athens on March 19, a day that was ideal for the event.
“It is so good to be back with you here at St. Mary, particularly today as we celebrate the feast day of her spouse, St. Joseph. What a blessed day to bless our new columbarium here at this parish,” the bishop said in his opening remarks at a morning Mass before the dedication.
St. Mary pastor Father Christopher Manning concelebrated the liturgy, and the parish’s Deacon Al Forsythe assisted. Deacon Hicks Armor was master of ceremonies.
The new columbarium highlights a trend in parishes—large and small—around the Diocese of Knoxville to have a place for the inurnment of cremated remains. For St. Mary, a columbarium is a nice addition as the Athens parish is not close to the diocese’s Catholic cemeteries in Knoxville and Chattanooga.
Bishop Mark Beckman leads the blessing of the columbarium at St. Mary Church in Athens. With him are (from left) St. Mary Deacon Al Forsythe, server Joseph Gordon, Deacon Hicks Armor, and St. Mary pastor Father Christopher Manning. (Photo Dan McWilliams)
The dedication of the St. Mary columbarium capped an effort in the parish that took several years, predating the arrival of Father Manning as administrator in 2024 and his appointment as pastor last year.
“Today is a marvelous feast day, the feast day of St. Joseph, who cared for the Christ Child and also the Blessed Mother,” Bishop Beckman said as he began his homily. “But the prominence of Joseph in the history of the Church didn’t come about until more recently, actually. Very rare was it to see Joseph depicted in art, except for the Nativity scenes, until about the 1600s, and then popularity of Joseph being depicted holding the Christ Child became more common.
“In the late 1800s, he was added as the patron of the Church universal, and most recently Pope Francis had his name added to our eucharistic prayers in the liturgy, so that when we use those ordinary prayers, the first four eucharistic prayers, now the name of Joseph appears.”
St. Joseph took on a tremendous assignment, the bishop said.
“It’s interesting that Joseph as a figure in the history of the Church often remained in the background, as he does in the Gospels as well,” he said. “And yet, the significance of his vocation: chosen by God to accompany Mary and Jesus during those most important years as Jesus was formed and prepared for His ministry, a beautiful and irreplaceable vocation.
“Every one of us has been chosen by God. We have our own vocations in the Church. None of us should ever think that our vocations are unimportant. The Lord wants to use each one of us to bring about the beautiful gift of His kingdom. He desires us to say yes, as docile and humble as Joseph himself said yes to the Lord.”
Celebrating St. Joseph’s feast day on the same day as a columbarium blessing was “providential,” Bishop Beckman said.
Bishop Beckman delivers the homily at the 9 a.m. Mass at St. Mary Church in Athens on March 19 before he blessed the columbarium. (Photo Dan McWilliams)
“St. Joseph is the patron of a happy death. We pray to him for that grace. It’s so appropriate, then, to bless the columbarium on this particular feast day,” the bishop said. “I did once tell a priest friend of mine, you know, we have to pray to St. Joseph for a happy death, and he said, ‘Well, for me, a happy death is any one that ends in heaven.’ We do desire also the passageway from this world to the next to be one of peace, so let’s pray today that we may be as responsive to the Lord’s call today as was St. Joseph.”
At the end of Mass, Father Manning welcomed Chancery staff members who were in attendance following a retreat for the diocesan office’s employees led by Bishop Beckman and held at Christ Prince of Peace Retreat Center in Benton that week.
“As Bishop mentioned in the homily, St. Joseph is that patron saint of happy deaths, so we pray on this day for all those who have gone before us, especially from our parish community,” Father Manning said, adding that the bishop is also “our guardian and guide for the diocese.”
“The bishop plays that role of Joseph, helping to guide and lead us as a diocese into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord,” Father Manning said.
The St. Mary pastor also expressed gratitude toward the columbarium and building committees that brought the project to its completion.
“I thank you for your dedication and all the hard work and shepherding that you have done to get us to this joyous and blessed day,” he said.
Bishop Beckman closed the Mass by thanking Father Manning and Deacons Forsythe and Armor.
“You all do have a beautiful church, and I was able to go out and look at your columbarium before we began Mass today. What a beautiful and fitting location, a place of great beauty for the remains of the loved ones we hope to inurn in that location. We’re grateful to the Lord for each one of you and the role that you play here at St. Mary,” the bishop said.
Bishop Beckman did not overlook the server at Mass, Joseph Gordon, who also assisted at the dedication afterward.
“His name is Joseph, so he gets to serve on his patron’s feast day,” the bishop said.
The columbarium dedication began with a greeting from Bishop Beckman and a prayer.
“Brothers and sisters in Christ, a common Christian concern has brought us together to bless this columbarium, where remains and the remains of others sealed with the name of Christ will be at rest, awaiting the dawn of the Lord’s coming in glory. After preparing this resting place for the dead, we should look to Christ, who suffered and died and rose again for our salvation. He has commanded that we keep watch for His coming and has promised to meet us when we rise again,” the bishop said, before praying:
“Lord, you have made your people a pilgrim Church to be welcomed by you into its eternal home. May this place prepared in the sure hope of the resurrection never cease to remind us of the life that we share in Christ, who will transform our earthly bodies to be like His in glory, for He is Lord for ever and ever.”
Deacon Forsythe then proclaimed a reading from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17.
“We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so, too, will God, through Jesus, bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus, we shall always be with the Lord.”
Bishop Beckman spoke about the columbarium blessing taking place during Lent.
“It was only a few weeks ago that we gathered on Ash Wednesday to begin the great season of Lent with ashes marking our foreheads in the sign of the cross. Remember that we are dust and to dust we are to return,” he said. “In this place, where we will place the cremated remains of our loved ones, we are vividly reminded of that reality: that we are dust, created by God in His image and likeness. But that cross of Ash Wednesday points us forward to the great mystery of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when the Lord Jesus, by dying for us on the cross and rising from the dead, destroyed our death and restored our life, that we might live with Him forever.
“These graves are a sign of mourning, yes, but even more so of the hope of the resurrection, so we pray for the brothers and sisters who will be interred here in this living communion of those who have gone before us as St. Joseph has gone before us, to continue our journey through that great paschal mystery.”
The bishop then led another prayer.
“O God of all consolation, by your just decree our bodies return to the dust from which they were shaped, yet in your mercy you have turned this condition of darkness and death into a proof of your loving care. In your providence, you assured Abraham, our father in faith, of a burial place in the land of promise. You extolled your servant Tobit for his charity in burying the dead,” he said. “You willed that your own Son be laid to rest in a new tomb so that He might rise from it, the victor over death, and offer us the pledge of our own resurrection.
Elaine and Francis Schrader and their daughter, Kristin Schrader, of St. Mary Parish in Athens were on hand for the dedication of St. Mary’s new columbarium on March 19. (Photo Bill Brewer)
“Grant that this columbarium, placed under the sign of the cross, may, by the power of your blessing be a place of rest and hope. May the bodies interred here sleep in your peace to rise immortal at the coming of your Son. May this place be a comfort to the living, a sign of their hope for unending life. May prayers be offered here continually in supplication for those who sleep in Christ and in constant praise of your mercy. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.”
Before Deacon Forsythe led the intercessory prayers, Bishop Beckman spoke to the gathering at the columbarium.
“Christ, the Lord, has blotted out sin by dying on the cross and destroyed death by rising from the tomb. Let us therefore acclaim Him in prayer and call upon Him by saying, ‘Lord, hear our prayer.’”
The bishop led the group in the Lord’s Prayer before making an observation.
“I just noticed that the tree behind the columbarium has buds, the buds of spring, a symbol of resurrection,” he said.
Bishop Beckman gave a final blessing.
“With a goodness beyond imagining, God has created you, and in the resurrection of His Son has filled you with the hope of rising again. May the God of all consolation bless you now and forever. May he give us, the living, pardon for our sins, and to our dead brothers and sisters a resting place of light and peace now and forever. May we who believe in Christ’s resurrection from the dead live with Him in glory for ever and ever,” he said.
After the dedication, the bishop remarked that the event was a first for him, although a columbarium project had begun at his parish in Nashville where he was serving when he was appointed the shepherd of East Tennessee Catholics.
“When I was pastor at St. Henry in Middle Tennessee, we had planned a columbarium, and it’s close to completion, but I was called to become a bishop before I could bless that one, so St. Mary is my first columbarium blessing,” he said.
Bishop Beckman has seen columbaria on his journeys through East Tennessee since his arrival in 2024.
“I have noticed as I have traveled around our diocese that we have columbaria in many of our churches, which I think is very wonderful, that there is a place right on the church property that we can bury the remains of our loved ones,” he said.
The St. Mary columbarium joins others around the diocese and likely will be followed by additional ones.
“I do believe we’ll see more of them. More and more people are choosing cremation because of the cost and also the convenience. I think that people will be looking for a resting place for their loved ones,” Bishop Beckman said.
Father Manning said that the plans for the St. Mary columbarium changed over time.
“It’s gone through several different iterations, different feasibility studies. Our committee that’s been working on it—they’ve been working on just this current version for two or three years. They were looking at different locations, different designs, different styles,” he said.
St. Mary averages a combined 420 people at its weekend Masses, Father Manning said, adding that the parish is not alone in its desire for a columbarium.
“We have seen a trend, especially here I think with the Diocese of Knoxville, that a lot of parishes are putting in columbariums. We’re so far away from Catholic cemeteries in Chattanooga or Knoxville—it becomes a way of serving our Catholic population looking for a place of burial near the churches where they attend,” he said.
The St. Mary columbarium has 48 niches, with each niche holding two urns, and the parish has already laid the groundwork for expansion.
“We have two columbaria placed in. Once we sell about another 10, we’ll look at the second phase. It’ll be another one or two (columbaria). We already have the foundations for those built, and then the design itself allows for expansion of the base for three extra foundations to add three more wall niches as well,” Father Manning said. “Ultimately, at full build-out, which could take decades and decades, it would basically be a circle, so those curved walls would make one set.”
The building committee was chaired by Paul Kessler and the columbarium committee by Holly Currier.
“We have the columbarium committee itself, that once it was built they took over to help with the maintenance and oversee the running of the operations and the selling of the niches. They took over from our columbarium building committee that helped with the design and helped with the contracts and the contractors to get everything built,” Father Manning explained.
He saluted the teamwork among the committees and parishioners.
“They worked extraordinarily hard to get the columbaria to where they are. Their insight, their dedication, their input have been instrumental in getting us where we are,” Father Manning said.