A Visit to
St. MARY’S CHURCH
Detroit, Michigan
[1925]
written by Father Richard Ober
Erected by the Franciscans in 1885, St. Mary’s, while it is not the largest in ground dimensions, is yet one of the most massive and striking in the city. As one enters the Church he is immediately impressed by the magnificent proportions. It is Roman in style and cruciform – the cross being seen to best advantage in the richly frescoed ceiling. Beautiful polished granite columns divide the side aisles from the nave and support the walls of the main roof. These costly monolithic shafts give an air of richness to the ornamental plaster decorations of the walls and ceilings and are in pleasing contrast to the more common order of Church decorations. Recently redecorated, the interior dimensions are considerably emphasized. The extreme length is 176 feet, the width of the body 80 and of the transept 116 feet. The height of the nave at the center of the arch towers 90 feet. The most notable features outside of the magnificent proportions are its wood-carved stations and its several shrines, which in no way detract from the original purpose of its architectural outline. It is these shrines that single out the Church of St. Mary’s in Detroit as the “Church of the Grottoes.” The Holy Ghost Fathers, the Religious in charge, share the signal honor of possessing an edifice at once commandingly artistic and sheltering a group of grottoes unlike anything to be found in this country. These grottoes are the choice and plentiful offspring of the creative genius and pious inspiration of one man as they are in great part the work of his own hands. It was under the personal direction of Reverend Joseph Wuest, C. S. Sp., that the Grotto of the Agony and the Grotto of Lourdes took shape and gave expression to an artistic conception that makes these grottoes the appealing shrines of piety that they are. The exquisitely wood-carved and realistic life-sized statues and the painted shores of the Jordan river apart, the Grotto of the Holy Baptism is in its entirety the manual labor of love and zeal that the pious genius and deft fingers of Reverend Father Wuest, C,S,Sp., could alone construct.
