Funerals are our last, BEST, chance to give a reason for the hope that is within us but, more and more, God is being sidelined. Marian Caskets has labored since 2009 to help people be certain that our only hope in the face of death, Jesus Christ, is at the center of our funeral, reminding family and friends to trust in Him at a time when they are most in need of and open to God’s grace.
Seeing our caskets at funerals, word of mouth and much exposure through dozens of interviews on and in Christian and secular TV, radio and newspapers have grown our family business into one that now serves the entire United States. We are expanding from where we began in a small shop on Vashon Island, WA with a new east coast shop in Scranton, PA.
Why Scranton?
Last year we were contacted by a member of Saint Thomas More Catholic Church in Scranton’s Providence neighborhood. Saint Thomas More is an Anglican Ordinariate parish, in full communion with Rome, with the rare distinction of having a married pastor, Father Eric Bergman. Father Bergman converted from Episcopalianism in 2005, largely led by the Catholic Church’s consistent insistence on the sanctity of ALL human life. His parishioner called us because Father Bergman and his wife Kristina’s 11th child, Damian, had just died in Kristina’s 35th week of pregnancy. They were in need of a casket for his burial and asked to have a quote from Saint Peter Damian engraved on the top.
The top of Damian Bergman’s casket
This call led us to pray for the Bergman family, build the small casket and look closely at Saint Thomas More parish and its associated school, Maria Kaupas Academy. Amidst this, we felt a prompt to move our family cross country and establish Marian Caskets’ east coast workshop.
We have been using space in the empty school next door to the church building as a temporary location. The school needs to be renovated and returned to its original purpose of forming the charitable, capable and virtuous young citizens so desperately needed to leaven our country. So, while we are grateful for the space we have, we’ve been keeping an eye out for a permanent location near the church, where the rhythms of Saint Thomas More’s liturgical life can define our daily labors.
Old School
Providentially, a commercial building just became available RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. The asking price is $165,000 and it needs a lot of work. I am writing this blog post to ask for help raising $200,000, quickly, in order to make the purchase and get to work repairing the building. Thousands of people have shared with us the positive impact of the work we have been doing these past 12 years. Witnessing family and friends being buried in our caskets, and seeing the grace of God give them courage to face their own mortality has been a tremendous privilege for us.
Shop across the street, awaiting transformation
Now, we are working to amplify the positive impact Marian Caskets have had on those who mourn. This new space will allow us to build many more caskets as well as to extend our evangelical reach by striving to embody faith, hope and love through the strength and beauty of woodworking amidst the vulnerability of mortality, penetrating hearts and minds that might otherwise be closed off to God’s saving love for them.
Divine Mercy Cross
Divine Mercy Casket
Thank you for the privilege of doing this work and God bless you, Marcus Daly and Family
P.S.
We are aiming to expand Marian Caskets to the point where we never have to turn down a request for a casket again and where we can employ several young people, giving them practical woodworking skills while they discern God’s call for the fulfillment of their earthly missions. We also hope to generate money to renovate the church and school and perform Works of Mercy in and around Providence, the poorest per-capita zip code in Northeastern Pennsylvania, shining God’s light in the darkness and making His ongoing presence in the world visible and attractive as a beacon for all of us so desperately in need of Him.