Search
-
July 30, 2020A few days before the third feast day for Blessed Stanley Rother, Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Church in Oklahoma City unveiled a new reliquary to honor the martyr.
Blessed Stanley was murdered on July 28, 1981, in his rectory at Saint Janes the Apostle Catholic Church in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, where he served as a missionary priest. On Dec. 1, 2016, he was recognized a martyr for the faith by Pope Francis. He is the first martyr from the United States and the first U.S.-born priest to be beatified. The Rite of Beatification was held on Sept. 23, 2017.
Blessed Stanley Rother spent more than a decade at the Oklahoma diocese's mission in Atitlan, Solola, Guatemala, serving the native tribe of the Tz’utujil.
Following the Rite of Beatification, pastors in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City were given the opportunity to request a first-class relic of Blessed Stanley.
“I had the idea for a special reliquary even before the Beatification. I spent some time looking at reliquaries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. They have many ancient ones, so I took a lot of pictures. It showed me there was a great variety of artistic styles that could be used,” Father Stephen Bird said.
Epiphany applied for funding from the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma’s Pastoral Music and Fine Arts Grant Program in March 2019 and received approval in June 2019, which fully funded the reliquary.
“I believe this is the first custom-designed reliquary for Blessed Stanley anywhere,” Father Bird said.
Father Bird commissioned artist Shelley Kolman Smith, who owns Flying Paint Ranch Sculpture Studio in Poetry, Texas. She also created the parish’s statues of the Three Kings with Mary and Jesus on the east side of Epiphany’s church.
The reliquary features wheat on one side, representing the crop that Blessed Stanley grew on his family farm in Okarche, and on the opposite side it features corn, which Blessed Stanley helped the Guatemalan people grow. F.C. Ziegler Company in Tulsa did the polishing of the bronze and gold plating, and parishioner Neal Wilson created the wood shelf that features crosses carved on both sides replicating those on the ambo, cabinet of the scared oils and the altar. There soon will be a glass case for the relic, and both the Blessed Stanley Rother painting and the relic will be highlighted by spotlights, Father Bird said.
The reliquary was placed on the west side of the church to provide a special spot to allow people to reflect on his virtues, according to Father Bird.
“He was an Oklahoman farmer who heard God’s call and served God’s people, so much so that he gave his life. He is a model for all of us to be faithful,” Father Bird said.
The Gospel used at Epiphany’s July 25-26 Masses was the same used at Blessed Stanley’s funeral and Beatification. The words from John 12, 24 seemed to reflect his life.
“Jesus said, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies it produces much fruit.”
Father Bird noted during his homily that in the first 400-year history of the parish in Santiago Atitlan, there were no priests ordained from the village, but since Blessed Stanley’s death, there have been at least 10 priests ordained and two more from the Cerro de Oro mission church where he also served.
Judy Hilovsky is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.
Fr. Stephen Bird displays the new custom designed reliquary for a Bl. Stanley Rother relic at the Church of the Epiphany of the Lord in Oklahoma City. Photo Cara Koenig.
