One of my favorite prayer stops, St Mary in Savannah

I travel around the area going from campus center to campus csnter. One of my favorite stops for a prayer break is St Mary's in Savannah TN.

Years ago, I was fortunate to meet Father Celistine Pfastinel. He basically started and built St Mary's with the MSST Trinitarian order. My dad and I drove to Savannah to visit with a priest we knew that was Fr Celiestine's associate (Fr Vernon Dannermann). We knew Fr Vernon from visiting relatives in central Mississippi, where he was pastor of a church. You read all the stories about the history of the Catholic church in West Tennessee, and you find out that Fr Celistine opened churches in Savannah, Pickwick, Bolivar, Selmer, Parsons, Waynesboro, and had regular masses in Lexington and Hoenwald. Fr Celestine sounds bigger than life, but he is just a humble everyday person. It was a pleasure to get a chance to meet such a pioneer of the faith. Many of these churches had 25 to 40 families and were very small.

I have driven by the old Savannah church that Fr Celistine built by hand, and it is now no longer in use. Now a big beautiful church on Pickwick road built in 2003 replaced it. This church building was spearheaded by the present pastor, Fr Tom Kirk. I remember Fr Kirk from his days as pastor of St Joseph in Memphis. St Joe is about 4 miles from my growing up home.

When I go to Savannah and stop at St Mary's, its like seeing a seed being planted and seeing a plant grow and bloom.

There is another connection to the area. The altar at Our Lady of the Lake at Pickwick has the altar from the old church at St Paul in Memphis. St Paul is where I went to school. It was a sad event, last year, when Our Lady caught fire and burned. The only good thing about such news it the realization that the church will grow back even better.

As you can tell, the aura of a prayer stop makes St Mary's a great place to stop for that renewing prayer break.