We took a two night, three day trip this week from Oklahoma to traditional Catholic oasis in St. Mary’s, KS, the Catholics of the Society of St.Pius X parish there numbering several thousand.
Their original church burnt down over 40 years ago. Since then they’ve planned and saved, using 42 million to build what is now one of the largest and most magnificent of Catholic Churches in the US, not only to accommodate their huge local parish community, but as a great symbol of the preservation today of the Catholic Faith not only by the Latin Mass movement and SSPX, but as a symbol of hope in restoration for the universal Church
It was a 4 hour drive both ways. We arrived the afternoon before the Consecration of the Church and stayed in a cheap but nice motel in a nearby town, where we usually stay when visiting
While we did mark this event on our calendar months ago, I had not focused on it enough to reserve our seats until about a month ago, or else we would have had better seats being assigned to the group in the church basement viewing the ceremonies live-streamed over TVs.
The Consecration of the Church itself was something great, my first time. It was a long ceremony with many parts, the blessing of the outside, the inside, side altars, the main altar, and transfer of relics. The highlight was the consecration of the main altar which involved burning incense in several small fires ontop of the altar. The Consecrattion took over two hours, followed by High Mass, the entire event taking 4 and 1/2 hours total.
We said hi to a few people we knew afterwards including one of the SSPX Sisters. Afterwards, the parish provided sandwiches, chips, and cookies under a tent, but later we had a late lunch at Sugar Creek deli on Main Street, with an old-fashioned deli atmosphere.
We went back to the motel to take a nap where the dogs were surprisingly, seemingly enjoying themselves stretched out on the king size bed. Then we drove back and attended Vespers in the new church. Gazing at the sanctuary, the ornate altar and ceiling, it drew your mind and heart upward to heaven.
The highlight for me was as we approached to enter the church for Vespers, Bishop Fellay and all the priests attending were solemnly processing outside down the sidewalk around to the front of church. As we paused to reverently let them pass by first, Bishop Fellay looked up from his bowed head and, seeing us, gave us his episcopal blessing
The next morning we attended Mass again in the new Immaculata Church and drove home through a heavy rainstorm. It was a very simple but edifying trip. If you can, you should try and visit this church one day, and in the meantime check it out on YouTube.