Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Vicksburg dedicates statue of patron saint – The Vicksburg Post

A statue of the patron saint of St. Paul’s Catholic Church now adorns the church sanctuary, and the story of his arrival begins with a new pastor and a donation left to the church altar society.

Shortly after arriving at St. Paul’s Catholic Church as pastor, Reverend Rusty Vincent was approached by Janice Waring with a gift from the church altar company.

“Money was donated to the altar company years ago and it had been on CD for many years,” said Waring, who was the treasurer of the altar company.

Interest in the altar company had waned for several years and two years ago the group disbanded with money still in the bank.

“I went to Father Rusty and told him we wanted to do something with it but we didn’t want to fragment it,” Waring said. ” What do we need ? “

Vincent noticed the need. The church had statues of Jesus and Mary, but there was no statue of the church’s patron saint, Saint Paul the Apostle.

“Since the church did not have a statue of Saint Paul and we called ourselves Saint Paul, I thought it was the best thing to do,” said Vincent.

The decision led to a two-year process to find a statue of St. Paul that ended up with the TH Stemper Co., which specializes in supplies and repackaging and manufacturing statues for churches, making the statue .

When she first saw the statue, Waring said, “It was a white statue, but the maker put us with an artist and when it was finished it looks like wood. We were very pleased.

Parishioner Charles Hahn made the support for the statue using wooden pipes from the old church organ.

On June 27, Saint Paul consecrated a statue of his patron saint in a ceremony at his 10:30 am mass.

“He is the patron saint of the church, it bears his name and the saints in heaven are already with God, so they intercede on our behalf; they pray that we go to paradise, ”said Vincent of the importance of the statue for the parish.

“When you name a church after a saint, you have a special connection with that saint who prays that we go to heaven and intercede on our behalf,” he said. “St. The life of Saint Paul, whether it be his conversion or his martyrdom, is everything to encourage us to live the life of a saint as he did.

Saint Paul, Vincent said, first persecuted Christians.

“He was caught up in zeal for the Jewish faith,” he said. “He was very passionate about it but at the same time too he was very misguided in the sense that he thought he was right but he lived it in a cruel way.

“Then he had his conversion; he had this vision of Christ which is seen in the Acts of the Apostles and completely changed it; he was devoted to Christ from that day until death. It was amazing the change he went through, ”said Vincent.