When a Glenmary missioner arrives in a county to call together a mission community, the missioner typically rents a highly visible storefront building in the heart of the county seat to use as a worship/gathering space.

Throughout Glenmary’s history, these storefronts have come in a variety of shapes, sizes and conditions. “We begin in very small ways,” Father Wil Steinbacher recently said in describing Glenmary’s home mission ministry. “We gather people in storefronts, theatres, old buildings, old houses, old churches and funeral homes. It’s the missionary effort to begin to plant the seeds of the Church that will grow.”

Over 100 mission communities have been established by Glenmary since the society’s founding in 1939 in just the way Father Wil describes. These mission communities eventually rooted themselves in their respective counties and today are well-established, stable parishes ministered to by diocesan clergy.

Today, Glenmary missioners and coworkers are still calling Catholic communities together across Mission Land, USA. They hope that what begins as a handful of Catholics worshipping together in storefronts or funeral parlors will grow into well-developed communities that minister not only to themselves but to their entire county.

1946: As a mission of Otway, Ohio, the Catholic community in West Portsmouth began meeting in a converted storefront. The gradual transition of the building took place as the community grew. Father Clem Borchers converted an abandoned storefront (top) into a Catholic information center (middle). Eventually, the community took the name Our Lady of Sorrows and dedicated the building as their church.