The sun shone brightly upon the good people of Saint Mary in Morrice on Sunday, October 12, as the parish celebrated the 150th anniversary of the dedication of their first church. Ave Maria!
“I can't believe it’s happening, it's wonderful,” said pastor Monsignor George Michalek who is himself a son of the parish, “I was walking through the cemetery this week and thinking that so many of these people would love to have be here for this party, to celebrate our faith, because they loved this parish and kept it going over many years.”
“We’re very rural and there have been struggles to preserve the faith, especially in the 1920’s when the Ku Klux Klan were very active in this area.”
Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing was the principal celebrant and homilist at yesterday’s Mass with Monsignor Michalek concelebrating and Deacon Ryan Ferrigan assisting at the altar.
The earliest record of Catholic activity in the area of Morrice parish is to be found in the 1868-70 annual reports of Saint Mary Cathedral in Lansing. Father Louis Van Driss lists Perry, which is just two miles from Morrice, as a station he regularly visited. In Perry Township there were German immigrants but in neighboring Antrim Township there was an even larger number of Irish Catholic families.
In 1871 Father Joseph Kraemer began visiting the Irish immigrants. Three years later, land and an old country schoolhouse were purchased in Antrim Township. After renovating the school the following year, the first church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary on October 12, 1875.
“My prayer for the next 150 years,” said Monsignor Michalek, “is that we draw ever closer to Jesus Christ because God is good all the time and all the time, God is good.”
* To know more about the parish of Saint Mary in Morrice go to: https://stmarymorrice.org/
