St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families and St. Genevieve-St. Maurice celebrate Masses of Unity
The Michigan Catholic

DETROIT — Two Masses of Unity the weekend of June 30-July 1 created two new parishes for the Archdiocese of Detroit — St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families Parish in Center Line and St. Genevieve-St. Maurice Parish in Livonia.

Auxiliary Bishop Michael Byrnes celebrated the Mass of Unity on June 30 for St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families — which was created from the merger of St. Clement, Center Line, and St. Teresa of Avila, Warren — at the St. Clement worship site in Center Line.

Masses of Unity include several unique rituals, including the blessing and renaming of the parish as well as the combination of sacramental records and sacred items, such as baptismal water.

The name St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families, comes from Blessed Pope John Paul II’s addition of the title to the Litany of the Blessed Virgin in 1995. In 1964, 400 bishops petitioned the Holy See for the inclusion of the title for Mary to express her relation to the Holy Family of Nazareth. And in 1981, Pope John Paul II added in his apostolic exhortation “Familiaris Consortio,” the hope that “the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, be also mother of the ‘family church.’ Through her maternal help, may every Christian family be a ‘little church’ in which the mystery of Christ is relived.”

Fr. Robert Bauer, the new pastor of St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families, wrote in the new parish’s first bulletin that he recognizes that “this is a time of change for the people at St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families Parish.”

“The journey of faith that has strengthened you through the Together in Faith process is one which will continue well into the future even after my time among you comes to an end,” Fr. Bauer wrote.

Fr. Bauer was pastor of St. Patrick Parish, Carleton, and St. Joseph Parish, Maybee, until his appointment as pastor of the newly combined parish.

On July 1, Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss celebrated a Mass of Unity creating St. Genevieve-St. Maurice Parish in Livonia. The parish’s new name is a combination of St. Genevieve Parish and St. Maurice Parish, which were both in Livonia.

Fr. Howard Vogan, the pastor of the combined parishes, wrote in the bulletin of St. Maurice Parish on June 10 that the two namesake saints had much in common.

“How great is it that these two saints, who trusted in Jesus, these two people who made such a difference in the worlds of their times, are now in relationship with each other for us and we with them so that we, the parish family of St. Genevieve-St. Maurice, trusting in Jesus and under their guidance, will make a difference in the world of our time,” Fr. Vogan wrote.

“It is not a coincidence that in the early 400s, in a little village 15 miles outside of Paris, France, the youthful Genevieve was a parishioner of St. Maurice Church.”