St. Mary’s will hold final mass and dinner on January 26
From Chuck Wiser, I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
I have been asked to announce to the interested public that the St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Bolivar, NY will conduct its final mass Sunday, January 26th at 3:00 PM with a complimentary dinner to follow in the parish hall from 4:00 to 6:00. Parishioners have been invited to join them, and no reservations are required. The church is located at 111 Wellsville Street in Bolivar.
St. Mary’s, sadly, will finally end its long running service here as local parishioners have been challenged for quite some time now with mergers, relocations and far too many closures, as has been the trend throughout the region.
As noted by Norene Ferris, who will sing Ave Maria as she has done many times over the years, with this being her final time here; “We are in the diocese of Buffalo and have been under the Wellsville Diocese for several years, as we share the priests, but have remained our own entity as St. Mary’s. The Buffalo diocese is closing many parishes due to lack of finances and lack of priests. Our parish family is smaller than some, thus we were selected to close. We are not now “merging”. St. Mary’s parishioners are invited to join them but are free to join any local parish.”
As a note of historical interest, the first services at this location date back to 1881. The first mass in the wooden structure on site was Nov. 19, 1882. The wooden structure was moved to the rear of the property to serve as a meeting hall and was replaced by a brick-and-mortar edifice in 1904. Father Carraher was the priest in residence at that time and who was replaced by the Reverend James A. Griffin in 1889.
