ST MARY'S MISSION

Day 226: December 24

St Mary's Mission, Stevensville, Montana, USA



On the night of December 24, 1841, not long after Fr Pierre De Smet started the mission of St Mary's with the Salish or Flathead Indians in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana (USA), an orphan went to a conical Indian tent or "types" of an old woman in order to study the various Christian prayers in preparation for his baptism on Christmas Day.

Little Paul, who is 11 years old, told Fr De Smet afterwards that he saw a wonderful person there: "Her feet did not touch the earth, her garments were as white as snow, she had a star above her head, a serpent under her feet, and near the serpent there was a fruit that I did not recognize, I could see her heart, from which beams of light shone on me: when I saw all this for the first time it frightened me, But later the fear left me, my heart warmed, my mind became clear, and I don't know how it happened, but suddenly I knew my prayers."

Uncertain whether the radiant visitor was a man or a woman, little Paul said that the same person had come to him in the dream, and he is pleased that the first village of the Flatheads was called "Holy Mary."

Based on this description of the boy, Father De Smet eventually concluded that the boy's helper was the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, the following year, on May 31, he had a statue erected in the place of the apparition, where he blessed during the procession to Corpus Christi, dedicating the statue as "Our Lady of Prayer."

Sadly, little boy Paul died after ten years and then the mission was closed due to raids by American Indian enemies. Later the Jesuits built a new St Mary's Church in 1866, which in turn closed in 1891 after the last of the Flatheads was transferred to a reservation 45 miles to the north.

In 1921 St Mary's reopened as a parish church. The 1866 chapel was renovated as part of St Mary's Historic Mission, a non-governmental tourist attraction operated by a private foundation. Next door is St Mary's Parish Catholic Church, built in 1954, with stained glass windows depicting the history of the mission. An annual pilgrimage of the Salish (Flathead) Indians takes place on the Sunday closest to September 24, commemorating the founding of the mission in 1841.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Grant, O Blessed Mary, that I may glorify God in the service of souls, with the humility of your mind, O Handmaid of the Lord, with the love of your heart, O Mother of God and our Mother."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 78)

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