{"id":2171,"date":"2007-12-19T07:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T07:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/12\/deacon-daves-ministry-of-lights.html"},"modified":"2007-12-19T07:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T07:27:00","slug":"deacon-daves-ministry-of-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/12\/deacon-daves-ministry-of-lights.html","title":{"rendered":"Deacon Dave’s “ministry of lights”"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a quarter century, a Catholic deacon in California has transformed his home into a cosmic light show for Christmas. Now, he’s at it again<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/a> It’s one thing to get the ladder out, drag the holiday light string up to the roof and pound the U-shaped nails into the gutter. It’s entirely another to have enough filaments and bulbs to need your own PG&E transformer to run them all.<\/p>\n

A combination of carefully crafted themes, yeoman’s work by a small army of volunteers and enough wattage to be seen by denizens of the International Space Station has made 352 Hillcrest Ave., on Livermore’s east side a popular stop for Christmas light display fans young and old from all over the East Bay.<\/p>\n

This is the 25th year Deacon Dave Rezendes has turned his house into a bright, constantly-in-motion amalgam of lights, holiday messages and animated features. He calls it “Casa del Pomba,” Portuguese for “House of the Dove,” and it is a labor of love in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

“I like to call it a ‘ministry of lights,'” said Rezendes, who plans and designs the annual displays in part to touch people on a spiritual level.<\/p>\n

Though he is also celebrating his 25th year as a deacon at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Livermore, Rezendes stresses his display is “interdenominational.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a quarter century, a Catholic deacon in California has transformed his home into a cosmic light show for Christmas. Now, he’s at it again: It’s one thing to get the ladder out, drag the holiday light string up to the roof and pound the U-shaped nails into the gutter. It’s entirely another to have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deacons","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nDeacon Dave's "ministry of lights" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/12\/deacon-daves-ministry-of-lights.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Deacon Dave's "ministry of lights" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For a quarter century, a Catholic deacon in California has transformed his home into a cosmic light show for Christmas. 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