Minutes ago you were riding down a freeway 9 miles south of Tucson. All of a sudden, off to the right you see two white towers and you recognize you’re approaching a beautiful and historic Catholic mission church. It’s known as the White Dove of the Desert, the San Xavier del Bac Mission Church. It dates back to the late 1700’s as you see it now — but it was started by the great padre of the southwest — Eusebio Kino. He arrived in the 1600’s — riding into the town and drawing a crowd of curious Tohono O’odham natives. The first ”
‘missionary’ of the southwest — Padre Kino brought the faith to this area. By some estimates, he and his associates baptized more than 30,000 souls before his death. And what is interesting is — the O’odham peoples of today are still quite Catholic.
Mission San Xavier del Bac was founded as a Catholic mission by Padre Kino. It is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona. It’s interior is filled with original statuary and mural paintings. It is a place to look back in time and enter an authentic 18th century view of our Catholic faith. For the reason of an audio pilgrimage — and to help refresh us in the origins of our Catholic faith in one part of our great country — Dee and I were pleased to do our first sound-seeing podcast from this outstanding place of service to Catholics dating back 300 years and more.
Show Notes and Links
The website for the San Xavier Mission is found at:
http://www.sanxaviermission.org/
We also mentioned Queen of Peace parish and our new audio association with the pastor, Fr. Patrick J. O’Doherty. You will find contact information for this Ocala Church, for Fr. Pat and for the people who record and distribute his sermons and teachings. All of this information is found on the new Fr. O’Doherty page of this website. Just click on the tab.
During our show — Tom noted a new (to us) couple who are doing a great podcast. The show is called and the link is:
http://mikeandevearecatholic.podbean.com/
We closed our show with a song entitled Parent’s Wedding Prayer written by a prolific musician: Rose Augustine. The vocalist on this piece is Melanie Shepperd of the Good Shepherd Singers. You can find loads of Rose Augustine’s music on her website which is at www.roseaugustine.com Her music is available for purchase on that site, and on iTunes and CDBaby.com
Thanks for being a listener to our home-brewed effort — coming to you from down a Rocky Road in Arizona…. where we hope it will soon be a dry heat!
Blessings.
Deacon (Nasal sounding) Tom (and the currently in exile Dee) Fox