Hospital groundbreaking ceremony in Sandy comes full circle with Blessed Sacrament Parish pastors

Friday, Apr. 22, 2016

SANDY — Many years ago when the late Monsignor Robert C. Pollock was the founding pastor of Blessed Sacrament School, he started a long-lasting relationship with Sandy City, which led him to give the invocation at the groundbreaking of Alta View Hospital in Sandy.

That relationship continued with Monsignor Robert R. Servatius, who for the past 30 years has been the pastor at Blessed Sacrament: On April 14 Msgr. Servatius gave the invocation at the groundbreaking for the hospital’s $140 million campus-wide expansion.

“Many years ago, for the first hospital, the opening prayer was given by a Blessed Sacrament pastor, and now that they are building this new facility, they continued the tradition by having the present pastor of Blessed Sacrament do it,” said Msgr. Servatius during the ceremony.

For many years Msgr. Servatius also has served on the Sandy Health Council that is associated with the hospital.

In addition, Msgr. Servatius frequently visits the hospital as part of his ministry.

“I am responsible for calls to sick people here, doing anointing and so forth,” he said. “It makes me feel that I have contributed something to the health concerns just by being here, serving in my capacities.”

 Before offering the invocation, Msgr. Servatius shared some facts with those who attended the ceremony.

“When the first hospital was established my predecessor, Msgr. Pollock, did the invocation at the groundbreaking. Now today as we do the groundbreaking, we have yet another Catholic priest from Blessed Sacrament to do the invocation,” said Msgr. Servatius as the crowd broke into laughter.

 “We have a little bit of history going around here. … Maybe there is a message behind it; I don’t know, but I am thinking if there is a message maybe I will start a movement to change the name of the hospital to Saint Mary’s,” he said.

Blessed Sacrament’s long community partnership with the hospital continues in other ways as well. Recently, the 2nd- grade students created spring art work for postcards that were delivered to patients, and “our 3rd-graders wrote well-wishes that were printed on the backs of these cards,” said Bryan Penn, principal.

In honor of the hospital’s new focus on cutting-edge technology, administrators asked students from four local high schools to design robots to break the ground for them Wednesday. The Juan Diego Catholic High School Robotics team modified their robot to wield a golden  shovel for the ceremony. 

The team’s robot, equipped with the golden shovel, wheeled down the red carpet, took is assigned place with the other robots and, after the count of three, scooped the first shovelfuls of dirt.