Ordination chalice has storied history

Archbishop Alex Brunett recalls having his ordination chalice made in Rome, in a small religious store in the Piazza Farnese near the French embassy and the Bridgettine Sisters’ Mother House.

“I wanted something a little bit different,” he said, “something that was personal to me.”

“Looking back over nearly half a century, I realize how much I still had to learn on that July day in 1958.  I had to grow in my understanding of what it meant to receive the gifts offered by God’s people assembled around the altar, to imitate what we memorialize in the Eucharist and to conform my life to its mystery.” Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, Oct. 18, 2007.

The chalice was designed by Mr. Lelli and made by a goldsmith in Florence, Italy.  The gold was fire gilded in mercury and the node and celtic cross were manufactured in black onyx.

The young Father Brunett was able to purchase the chalice with the financial help of his uncle, who donated the funds in memory of Father Brunett’s deceased godmother, Margaret.

One of the customs in Rome at the time was to consecrate a chalice by having the Holy Father use it to celebrate Mass.  So Father Brunett began making arrangements to have Pope Pius XII celebrate with the chalice.

“A lot of my classmates said ‘he will never use your chalice, it is too modern,’ but I talked to the sacristan who put the pope’s chalice out every day,” Archbishop Brunett said, “and he used it to celebrate Mass.” 

The pope was the first person to celebrate Mass with the chalice on July 6, 1958.  After Pius XII’s death in October that year, the newly-elected pope, Pope John XXIII, also consecrated Father Brunett’s ordination chalice by using it to celebrate Mass on June 17, 1959.

The unique chalice was stolen in the 1980s from St. Aidan Parish in Livonia, Mich., where Father Brunett served as pastor for 18 years.    It was recovered by the Livonia Police Department at a coin store in Dearborn, Mich. shortly before it was scheduled to be melted down for its precious metal. 

The chalice had been disassembled and the onyx stones destroyed.  It was restored on the occasion of Father Brunett’s 30th anniversary of priesthood.