Christmas Day celebrations: Centennial CelebrationsChristmas Day celebrations

Last Sunday, October 11th, the Yorkton - Melville Deanery held its celebration of the Centenary of the Archdiocese of Regina. Settlers began to arrive in this part of the Archdiocese in the early 1880's

Once again parish banners were prominent in the celebration. I have been very impressed by the imagination and work that has gone into these banners made for the Centennial of our Archdiocese.

St. Henry's Parish was founded in 1906 and in a way Melville was a microcosm of what was happening in the province with Polish settlers, Hungarians, Germans, Czechs, and Irish settlers all in one parish. You can imagine that there were many a rough spot in this parish as these diverse peoples came to grips with the challenge of accepting each other and working with each other to build the one community of the Church.

St. Stanislaus was founded in 1907. Since St. Stanisław is the patron saint of Poland and Krakow, there was obviously a stronlgy Polish community here, but also in this region were people from the Ukraine who also worked together and helped each other in these early days in our province.

St. Philip's however was the first parish in the region, founded in 1895. The presence of First Nations people from St. Philip's was a welcome addition to the celebration.

Rama is also a parish with strong Polish history and heritage. During the Pilgrimage this year I participated in a Polish Mass and so first hand how the traditions of this people have endured along with the language.

What a wonderful turn out of Altar Servers there was from the different parishes of the Deanery. I was very proud to have my picture taken with them.

The presence of the priests of the deanery was a very special part of the Eucharistic Celebration. On the left is Fr. Marcin Mironiuk O.M.I., then Fr. Vitalis Azike and on the other side of the servers Fr. Basil Chomos, Fr. Antoni Degutis O.M.I and Fr. Pat Murphy.