July 16, 2024 // Bishop
Eucharistic Pilgrimage Ignites 100-Year-Old Memories in Angola
For the Catholics of Steuben County, history repeated itself on Sunday, July 7, as they shared the excitement their ancestors must have felt 100 years ago – nearly to the day – in 1924 when the first Mass in Angola was celebrated.
On July 7, that same excitement filled the air as people gathered to welcome the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which brought Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to Angola – this time, not to a new church but as an overnight stop on the way to Indianapolis for the first National Eucharistic Congress in the United States in more than 80 years.
Photos provided by St. Anthony de Padua, Angola.
In the late 1920s, Steuben County remained one of the least Catholic counties in Indiana when Bishop John F. Noll mandated St. Michael Parish in Waterloo develop a mission church in “the wild lake country around Angola.” Previous efforts by missionaries to develop the territory were thwarted by bootleggers and fur trappers.
Undaunted, three priests from St. Michael, led by Father Clement Orth, answered the call and celebrated Mass at irregular intervals at different locations in town. The first Mass was celebrated in the Angola High School gym in July of 1924. Masses continued to be held there until September when summer vacationers declined. The few remaining parishioners rented rooms above Elton’s Shoe Store on West Maumee Street in Angola so that Masses could continue to be held.
It wasn’t until 1926, when Father Scholl bought a house across from what was known then as Tri-State College (it is now Trine University) and converted it into a church under the patronage of St. Rita that there was a regular Catholic worship space in Angola.
Concurrently, the Conventual Franciscan Friars, headquartered in Floyd County in southern Indiana, were searching for a location to build a novitiate. Bishop Noll responded in 1931, entrusting the church in Angola to the friars “in perpetuum,” and St. Rita was renamed St. Anthony of Padua.
While Mass was held in four different churches over the past 100 years, with attendance often meager in the winter and ballooning to thousands in the summer, the primary tenet of the faith, Christ fully present in the Eucharist – body, blood, soul, and divinity – remained.
The National Eucharistic Revival renewed the yearning and excitement that was first experienced in Steuben County years ago. Members of St. Joseph Parish in Lagrange, St. Anthony Parish in Angola, and St. Paul Chapel at Clear Lake formed a committee and developed a diverse selection of events to celebrate the opening of the revival. Early in the Parish Year of the revival, Peter Walters, St. Anthony’s parish point person for the revival and President of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, was overjoyed with the success of a special service on the feast of St. Vincent de Paul that united the message of the revival with the call to serve the poor among us.
Enthusiasm grew from there with additional opportunities to come face to face with Christ. Ken Rauch, Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus, said, “the sound of 104 men reciting the Rosary together at the Men’s Night of Formation was a powerful moment that brought tears to my eyes.” Not to be outdone, his wife, Janet, was equally pleased with the 200 women in attendance at a similar event sponsored by the parish’s Altar and Rosary Society. While each event that followed had a different focus – from agape dinners and adult education programs to the parish picnic – there was but one goal: to provide each participant an encounter with Christ on their personal walk to Emmaus.
On July 7, those Emmaus moments culminated when the Eucharistic Revival Committee welcomed the perpetual pilgrims of the Marian Route, who have been literally walking the road with Jesus from the headwaters of the Mississippi in Minnesota to Indianapolis, while 130 guests lined the route to the Trine University Dining Hall across the street where they broke bread together. Their reasons for attending were as varied as the guests themselves.
Krzysztof Hunienny traveled north from Florida for a wedding in Chicago, and he saw the Marian Route was passing through the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Moved by the experience, he cancelled his return ticket to Florida and placed himself in God’s hands. His plan was to continue to follow the pilgrimage to Indianapolis – with no reservations or vehicle. He said he has not been disappointed. He is amazed by the faith and generosity of strangers opening their homes and hearts to him, and said he is building lifelong friendships with people he never imagined would enter his life. He said, “We pray for amazing and are given miracles.”
Danny Tran, a young man from Texas, also flew to Chicago to join the Marian Route, committing to finishing in Indianapolis. He said he was raised Catholic but never took it seriously and wondered if it was real or not. “A malady,” he said, “faces so many young people today. This journey has opened my eyes to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the love and generosity of those who believe.” Tran believes this revival is calling the country to greater awareness and is praying for its success.
Dan Meyers, from Toledo, Ohio, through his tears, shared he was praying for a miracle. The day before the pilgrimage stopped in Angola, he learned his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he was offering his participation for a positive outcome.
Reluctant to leave the glow of the inspirational evening, guests in Angola lingered for a social hour before retiring to prepare for a busy morning.
At Mass at St. Anthony on Monday, July 8, with a homily by Father Malachy Napier, a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, who is a perpetual pilgrim on the Marian Route, tears flowed freely as guests received Jesus in the Eucharist.
Following a procession through downtown Angola, guests bid a tearful farewell to the Marian Route as the pilgrimage continued its journey, leaving memories that will last another 100 years.
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