Supplements

archive ISSUE

st. lawrence parish begins centennial celebration

Story and photo by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

With an eye on the past, a more than nodding acquaintance with the present and a hope for the future, parishioners at St. Lawrence in Lawrenceville began observing their centennial year with a prayer service and ice cream social.

About 60 people attended the Aug. 9 service that began with a lesson by Jim Gibson, centennial committee chairman, on St. Lawrence.

This was the eve of the saint’s feast day.
The past was highlighted with comments from Mary Longnecker, dressed appropriately for someone who stepped out of the past.

The present was described through a reading of the parish mission statement by Kurtis Seed.
Abby Gartner and Bryan Blanchette read from Scriptures as they described the future.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. But in all your ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct your path,” Abby read from Proverbs 3:5-6.

That’s good advice in any age, especially coming from a youngster.

This prayer service was planned as part of a number of activities to mark the parish’s 100 years.
Barbara Ruppel put together the prayer service, Gibson said.

The committee has been meeting once a month since January, preparing for the celebration.
A history describes the birth of the parish and the highlights of its history.

Before being organized as a parish, Catholic families — less than 20 — from Lawrenceville traveled to nearby Bridgeport, Olney or Vincennes, Ind., to attend Sunday Mass.

Hoping to form their own parish, local Catholics met at Lawrenceville City Hall on July 20, 1909 to sign papers creating St. Lawrence Parish.

Ground was purchased, and by early December, parishioners celebrated the first Mass in the unfinished church.
The church was finished and dedicated in October 1911 and became a mission of Immaculate Conception in Bridgeport with that parish’s Irish pastor, Father J.F. McCarthy.

By the time the church had been dedicated, oil had been discovered in Lawrence County which brought more families, some of them Catholic, to the area.

The parish boasted 22 families with the first baptism of Ruth August Diver recorded March 5, 1911.
During the years, improvements were made, land was purchased for a school to be built, and homes around the church were bought to serve as a convent for the Adorers of the Blood of Christ who would teach at the school, and a rectory when a resident pastor would be appointed.

The school opened with 74 students in September 1956.

“Some difficulties and inconvenience had to be endured for the first week, due to the finishing up work on the building, but finally the school was entirely completed and ready to carry on its work of intellectual, spiritual and physical education of the Catholic children of the parish,” according to notes from the centennial book.

After the school debt was paid, plans for a new church were discussed in earnest, and ground was broken for the building in late August 1960.

As parishioners sat in this “new” church from the 1960s, Gibson described the parish’s future through its children.
“These little children represent the future of St. Lawrence Parish,” he said.

“We are delighted by their energy and enthusiasm.
“We notice their vision and imagination.
“They are sincere and full of strength and promise.
“We feel that we can entrust the future faith and love of our parish to another generation.”

Parish administrator Bernardine Nganzi spoke to parishioners at the end of the prayer service bringing them back to the parish’s namesake, St. Lawrence.

“We see in St. Lawrence a man who permitted God to take complete possession of his heart,” Father Nganzi said.
Describing humility as one of the greatest virtues and pride as “the mother of all vices,” Father Nganzi said, “may the good Lord help us to imitate Lawrence and emulate his example.”

A centennial liturgy will be celebrated at 3 p.m. Oct. 18 with Bishop Edward K. Braxton celebrant and homilist, with a dinner to follow the liturgy.