Drawing of St. Dominic

(Brendan)

Recently our newest godson, Dominic, was baptized and Molly and I thought it would be a great gift to do a drawing for him. It was also a great opportunity to get back to doing some drawing; it always helps me to have a goal and a deadline :-) 

I wanted to draw a picture of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order and our godson's patron saint, so I found an image of a painting of the saint and looked at that image while completing the drawing (altering a few things to keep it simple).

At any rate, here's how it turned out (click any to enlarge)...

The drawing is graphite pencil and white charcoal on light brown Canson drawing paper.

God bless you Dominic!

Evan's ordination to the diaconate!

(Brendan)

Earlier this month we had the joyous occasion of attending the ordination of my brother, Evan, as a transitional deacon of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Evan is a seminarian at the St. Paul Seminary and, God-willing, will be a ordained a priest in May of 2012. But prior to that is his ordination as a deacon, and what a wonderful day it was! Praise God!

(Click any pics to enlarge)

The Koop clan arrives at the Basilica of St. Mary, in Minneapolis.

Evan with the kids prior to the ordination. 

Some of my pics are fuzzy (sorry, took them with my phone) but this gives an idea of the inside of the Basilica of St. Mary for those who haven't been there.

This photo was taken by The Catholic Spirit, our Archdiocesan newspaper (see here).

Evan and his fellow seminarians give their lives to the Lord in the service of the Church.

Evan is ordained a deacon by Archbishop John Nienstedt.

In a very special moment, my father, who is ordained as a permanent deacon, was able to help Evan don his vestments and greet him along with other clergy of the Archdiocese during the liturgy. Awesome!

A group photo after mass.

After mass, Molly and I pray with Evan and...

...receive one of his first blessings as a deacon.

At an open house later in the day, the kids get a blessing from Evan.

What a special blessing it is to have two deacons in our immediate family! We are so looking forward to Evan's ordination to the priesthood next year!

Henry's marker stone completed

(Brendan)

You might remember that I designed a grave marker for our son Henry late last year (see this post). Since then the marker has been created by a company near St. Cloud, MN, with Minnesota granite, and now that the ground has completely thawed the marker has recently been installed. We hadn't been able to see the completed marker until the first time we went to see it at the cemetery, but praise God it turned out just like we had thought it should.

Here was my original design...

Here's a close-up of the left-hand side...

And here are some pictures of the finished marker in place (click any to enlarge)...

(It was raining and cold, so Aidan, Max, and Francis were in the van when I took the pic above)

It is a great relief to finally have this marker in place and to know it will always be there from now on.