by Marc and Julie Anderson
mjanderson@theleaven.org
HARTFORD — Somehow it just didn’t seem right that a parish dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary didn’t have a rosary grotto — or a grotto of any kind, for the matter.
Such was the case with St. Mary Church in Hartford — until recently.
On Oct. 26, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann celebrated the 5 p.m. Mass, assisted by Father Mohana Rao Bathineni, administrator of the parish. The mission parish is served from St. Joseph Church in nearby Olpe. After Mass, the archbishop blessed the parish’s new rosary grotto, telling those gathered, “Nothing pleases Jesus more than we honor his mother.”
During the short ceremony, a small choir of children of the parish, led by Fred Gilligan, sang “Immaculate Mary.”
The idea for the grotto didn’t grow out of any master grounds plan.
“It was just a vision that we’d had for quite some time — several years really,” said Janel Wiederholt, the parish bookkeeper. “Being St. Mary’s, praying the rosary is very important to our parish. It’s just a vision that everybody thought would be really wonderful to have.”
In the spring of 2021, a committee was established to come up with a design, secure funds and oversee the construction, along with countless other details that come along with any construction project. Besides Wiederholt, those on the committee included Gregg Gasche, Tim Menard, Dorothy Wilson, Ed Winn and Brian Zweimiller.
“We had a really great committee,” Wiederholt said. The five members just dove right into the project almost immediately, brainstorming ideas and coming up with designs.
Then-pastor Father Matt Nagle helped the committee research the project online and discussed with parishioners the features they liked in similar gardens and grottoes found throughout the archdiocese, such as Christ the King Parish’s rosary garden in Topeka.
Breaking ground on June 26, 2022, the grotto was completed in three phases.
The first phase involved building the actual grotto. The grotto was revealed with the statue of Mary roughly six months later, on Dec. 4.
Immediately following the grotto’s public reveal, the committee launched efforts to construct the sidewalk. That’s when Winn had an idea.
“It’s St. Mary’s,” he said. “We wanted a rosary garden, and we had an old hall. We had a new hall built, and we wanted something in between [the church and the hall]. We first talked about a garden, but we decided a grotto for Mary would be nice. Once we had the grotto built, we were just thinking about putting a sidewalk around it.”
That’s when Winn suggested making the sidewalk into a rosary, complete with a cross and each individual bead. That way, parishioners could walk and pray the rosary.
“I designed the actual rosary sidewalk,” Winn continued. “So, I drew it all up, got it all to the cement guys, put it all in [and] came up with the idea for the granite stones in there.
“Things like this are what keep us together as a community, as a church.”
Wiederholt agreed, saying, when done, the limestone grotto cost around $30,000. The project would have cost much more, but numerous parishioners, community members and area businesses contributed their time and talent, as well as monetary donations.
Additionally, the parish’s annual fundraiser, its beef and noodles dinner, provided a lot of the necessary funds.
Now that the grotto has been dedicated, Father Bathineni said he’s excited for the parish community to come together in prayer even more, possibly by praying the rosary together before Mass at the grotto during the warmer months. But it’s something he will discuss with the pastoral council.
For now, he’s just gratified to see the many people stopping by throughout the day.
“People come throughout the day, stopping to pray. Now that we have the rosary grotto, we hope that people will pray the rosary, using the beads themselves,” Father Bathineni said. “That will be exciting when you see people going around the sidewalk counting the Hail Marys. That can bring people together and help them pray.”
