Meeting Spiritual Needs
Evacuees at the National Orange Show are getting their spiritual needs met with a Catholic mass at 11 a.m. daily.
The Rev. Tim Keppel, priest at Our Lady of the Lake in Lake Arrowhead and St. Anne in the Mountains in Running Springs, officiated mass today to about 200 evacuees fleeing the mountain fires.
“I don’t like doing it,” said Keppel, who has been with the San Bernardino Diocese for 25 years. “I wish I was still on the mountain. It’s something we have to do. There’s a need there and we need to take care of it. It’s something you never train for in the seminary.”
Keppel said parisioners came together to help out victims during the wildfires four years ago.
At that time, about 100 part-time church members who live in other areas offered their mountain homes to people whose houses were destroyed in the fires.
He said letters are being sent to part-time members encouraging them to open up their homes during the current catastrophe.
Keppel isn’t sure how many families in the two parishes have lost their homes in the current fires.
“I’ve spoken to a number of them who believe their houses are gone,” Keppel said.
Keppel said the mood of evacuees is upbeat right now, but he expects that to change in a few days.
“I would tend to think after three or four days, it’s going to start to get old,” Keppel said. “It will no longer be a break or vacation. IIt will become monotonous.”
At today's mass, Keppel talked about the idea of hope.
“Even out of the ashes, we can rise from this. We did it four years ago. We can do it again.”
-- Stephen Wall