WALK OF FAITH
Pilgrims embark on 7-mile trek to honor Blessed Stanley Rother
The faithful embarked on a sevenmile trek on Thursday to celebrate the man a Catholic shrine in south Oklahoma is named after.
One of the highlights of a “Day of Prayer and Pilgrimage” was the pilgrimage walk from Moore to the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine at 700 SE 89. Sister Maria Faulkner, founder of the Gospel of Life Disciples+Dwellings (GOLD) ministry, said her organization coordinated the day’s activities to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Blessed Stanley Rother’s ordination to the Catholic priesthood.
The shrine focuses on the life and legacy of Rother, an Oklahoma priest who was serving as a missionary in Guatemala when he was shot and killed by unknown assailants in the rectory of his parish church in July 1981. He was 46. Pope Francis proclaimed him a martyr for the faith in 2016. He is the first recognized martyr from the United States and the first U.S.-born priest to be beatified by the Catholic Church. Rother has been given the distinction of being called “blessed” to signify that he has been beatified and is one step away from Catholic sainthood.
On Thursday, pilgrimage participants walked from the GOLD ministry house called the St. John Paul II Dwelling in Moore to the shrine where they celebrated Mass.
The Rev. Don Wolf, Rother’s cousin and rector of Sacred Heart Church at the shrine, talked to pilgrims as part of special activities at the religious center. Also, an original portrait of Rother by Maestro Igor Babailov was presented.
Pilgrims visited the shrine museum and Tepeyac Hill on the shrine grounds before returning to the ministry home in Moore where dinner and evening prayer were held before attendees were treated to a talk by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda, author of “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run: Blessed Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma.”
The shrine focuses on the life and legacy of Rother, an Oklahoma priest who was serving as a missionary in Guatemala when he was shot and killed by unknown assailants in the rectory of his parish church in July 1981.