From the Archives

In honor of the Golden Jubilee of Oklahoma, the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa celebrated a Pontifical Mass on April 22, 1939, at the Municipal Auditorium (now called the Civic Center Music Hall) in Oklahoma City.
 
The descriptions of the Mass in the press accounts of the day describe the beauty and solemnity of the occasion. From the Southwest Courier (the diocesan newspaper): “Expressions of gratification quickly followed the service. It surpassed the expectations of all concerned, for no one surmised that the scenic beauty of the Mass surroundings would be on such a magnificent scale.”  
 
Six thousand people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, crowded the auditorium to witness the pageantry of a procession featuring 500 school children as well as Knights of Saint Gregory and the Knight of the Holy Sepulcher. Father Martin O’Malley, rector of Kenrick Seminary in Saint Louis gave the homily as he was “one of the most powerful orators in the country.”
 
Music was provided by four choirs from around Oklahoma City, including Saint Francis, to form a 90-voice Jubilee choir. The altar was 25-feet high and reached the top of the stage. The festivities were broadcast on KOMA radio.
 
The description of the photograph by the Southwest Courier is eloquent and flowery in keeping with the style of the day. “This picture gives an idea of the magnificent scenes of the Pontifical Mass … Here we see his excellency (Bishop Kelley) standing before the center of the altar, flanked by Monsignor G. Depreitere, the archpriest, on his left and Father E. Van der Grinten, deacon on the right. … Candles glow on the altar which is surmounted by a lighted plaque of the diocesan coat-of-arms. The beauty and richness of scenes such as this thrilled the 6,000 persons who sat spellbound though the service.”
 
The gathering was the first of this magnitude in the annuls of the young Church and allowed it to revel in its Catholicity and the importance it held in Oklahoma history.