MEMORIAL DAY
Once again, we will not be scheduling our usual outdoor Memorial Day Mass at St. Mary Cemetery. This Mass has in the past been attended by almost 300 people and we do not feel that we have enough space to accommodate that many people due to Covid-19 restrictions. We are hopeful that next year our outdoor Mass will be scheduled once again. We cannot wait.
This coming week, flags and flowers will be placed on the Veteran’s graves at St. Mary’s and Central Cemetery by town residents, students from Randolph Public Schools and Sailors from the USS Constitution who have volunteered to be part of our town’s remembrance of our fallen Veterans. It is a moving tribute to see these flowers and flags flying all over our cemetery.
Memorial Day has also become a day of remembrance for all our friends and family who have died. It is awe inspiring to watch families come to St. Mary’s Cemetery to plant flowers and pay respect to Veterans and to all those who are buried in this sacred ground. All through the year, many people come to the cemetery to visit their loved ones, talk a walk, ride bikes, or just enjoy the beauty of nature. It is truly a sacred place. The following tribute hangs in our Cemetery Office as a reminder of what we do each day.
THIS IS A CEMETERY
Lives are commemorated – deaths are recorded – families are reunited – memories are made tangible – and love is undisguised. This is a cemetery.
Communities accord respect, families bestow reverence, historians seek information, and our heritage is thereby enriched.
Testimonies of devotion, pride and remembrance are carved in stone to pay warm tribute to accomplishments and to the life – not death – of a loved one. The cemetery is homeland for family memorials that are a sustaining source of comfort to the living.
A cemetery is a history of people – a perpetual record of yesterday and a sanctuary of peace and quiet today. A cemetery exists because every life is worth living and remembering – always.
This tribute was provided by the Barre Granite Association