Parish hosts local Garden Walk

HOMER GLEN, Ill. — The Homer Glen, Illinois, Junior Women’s Club held its first-ever Garden Walk June 22, and the prairie of Annunciation Parish was the group’s first stop.

The walk included six different horticultural sights around the village of Homer Glen and each one had a particular theme. Annunciation Parish was the only church site. The other sites were private homes on neighborhood streets.

Club representatives said they were “thrilled” to have Annunciation church as one of the stops on the Garden Walk because of the church’s award-winning water management and sustainable environment plan for its 10-acre property.

The pastor, Father Thomas J. Loya, offered participants some of the history of the development of the prairie and insights into how it helped to resolve numerous environmental issues in the area.

Although they came primarily for the Garden Walk, many of the visitors took a peek inside the church where Father Loya explained how the church and surrounding grounds work together.

“The prairie you came to see is simply an extension into the environment of the same sacramental-liturgical vision that you see inside this church,” he told them.
 
Caption: Members of the Junior Women’s Club of Homer Glen, Illinois, walk through the prairie that surrounds Annunciation Parish on their first-ever Garden Walk.
 
As published in Horizons, July 8, 2017.
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