The Shrine of Saint Joseph Church of Miracles

in the stillness of its grand and silent sanctuary the shrine of st. Joseph stands as a modern-day witness to faith perseverance and commitment the quiet speaks powerfully to its simple beauty and impressive sense of dignity what it's 19th century architecture and handcrafted wooden statues and icons do not speak to our the people of this church those men and women who more than a century and a half ago would begin it to a group of modern-day heroes who would ultimately save it in the Archdiocese of st. Louis the shrine of st. Joseph is an extraordinary Catholic shrine it's majestic and stately appearance is almost breathtaking but even more than that the shrine of st. Joseph possesses and historical richness which is both extraordinary and in every way miraculous for almost 150 years this church has been the Church of miracles this is the mass celebrating the feast of Saint Joseph the Day which commemorates and honors the life of Joseph husband of the Virgin Mary and foster father of Jesus Christ more than 1,000 people from all over the st. Louis metropolitan area have come to worship and give thanks to God some come because they were married in this church others because they were baptized here or their relatives attended here and still others because of the history and tradition of this church now called the shrine of st. Joseph one of the grandest traditions at st. Joseph's is the veneration of a relic from st. Peter Claver the relic in this case is a bone ship from the body of Peter Claver a Jesuit priest known for his ministry to slaves being shipped out of Africa and into Colombia South America after every Sunday Mass at st. Joseph's the faithful are invited to venerate or kiss the relic venerating a relic like this is a sign of honor and a source of healing venerating this relic of st. Peter Claver has been a regular occurrence here since the first days of this church and the main reason st. Joseph's is known as the Church of miracles les McLaughlin conducts the public tours at the shrine of st. Joseph he is the docent for this noble Church in 1843 as waves of German immigrants came to st. Louis to begin their new lives in the United States Bishop Peter Kenrick saw the need for a church that would serve them exclusively st. Joseph's would be only the sixth Catholic Church in the city so Bishop Kendrick went to the Jesuits at Singlish University and he asked them to build a church for the Germans even went so far as to say if you didn't speak German you didn't read German you could not fulfill your Sunday obligation here at st. Joseph's I don't think you'd get any more German than that doesn't look like it it does today but the judges kept adding on to and extending the church until the way you see the inside today this is the way it looked in the spring of 1866 st. Joseph's sits majestically at the corners of 11th and Biddle only a few blocks north of st. Louis's downtown business district while a few residential areas dot the surrounding neighborhood st. Joseph's no longer serves the area as a parish church that distinction goes to st. Patrick's Church about five blocks to the east what most people do not know about this imposing church is that it is the only place in the Archdiocese of st. Louis were a miracle authenticated by the Vatican has taken place it happened in 1864 when Ignatius Strecker a German immigrant was healed from a terminal illness after he venerated the relic of Peter Claver this miraculous healing would lead to the canonization of Peter Claver as a saint in the Catholic Church structor had been injured while working at a soap factory in downtown st. Louis he was struck in the chest with a piece of metal rather violently he didn't think too much about it at first but his health began to deteriorate and finally the doctors diagnosed him as having tuberculosis in its later stages and which was fatal his nephew was Bishop Stryker who was in Kansas City he accidentally struck his chest against a pointed piece of iron his breastbone was injured and there is no considerable pain of burning sensations the tumor like information began to grow and there was no way to drain off accumulating a malignant matter and they were giving him just a few weeks to live just at that time a Jesuit missionary came in here to give a mission and after one of his sermons he said he'd like those who were ill or sick or injured to stay and he would give them a special blessing with a relic a bless of Peter Claver the relic being a bone ship up Peter Claver well the wife of this man who was dying heard this and she went home and implored her husband to come back over here to get the special blessing with a relic he agreed to do that and they carried him over here on a stretcher and he kissed the relic Strecker himself would say later that when his lips touched the crucifix containing the relic he felt what he called a sudden surge of strength throughout his body he was able to then walk out of the church unassisted the priest prayed over him and blessed him with the relic and so on and he walked out of church so the doctors who had been with him in all this they knew everything they did this isn't this is a miracle because it's unexplainable it's only God could could do that and a few days later he went back to work and lived for another 17 years that has been authenticated as a true miracle by the Vatican and as one of the two miracles that made Blessed Peter Claver st. Peter Claver two years after the healing of Ignatius Strecker in 1866 another miracle took place here while it has never been officially authenticated by the Vatican the incident began to solidify the reputation of st. Joseph's as a Church of miracles there was a great cholera epidemic going on in the city of st. Louis there was an average of 270 people a day dying from the cholera and there were 15 to 25 funeral masses here every day at st. Joseph's so the judge would past her at that time got the parishioners together and he said let's make a vow st. Joseph that if he intercedes with God to stop the cholera epidemic we will build something in his memory well from that day forward no one who made the vow nor any member of their family died from the cholera we think that's a miracle to honor st. Joseph for his intercession to spare any parishioner from the cholera epidemic the Jesuits built a new high altar in the sanctuary of the church today it is still called the altar of answered prayers Father Valentine young the administrator of st. Joseph's believes miracles still take place at st. Joseph's he remembers vividly the Sunday a distraught mother brought her three-month-old son to church she was crying and saying that the doctor said he has a tumor in his brain and it's inoperable there's just no hope at all I said well well bless him as a relic of st. Peter Claver and you pray and ask God for a miracle because God works miracles through the intercession of a saint it's God who doesn't and so we did she did and a year later she came back she's Father here he is it was when she said the doctors said that there is no sign of a tumor he's completely cured so she said that's the miracle I said well yeah that's what God does because you have faith because Jesus you know always whenever the Lord worked a miracle in the Gospels always your faith has cured you your faith has made you whole how many other miracles have occurred here no one really knows but many of the church's supporters today would say the fact that st. Joseph's is still standing today is a miracle in itself when st. Joseph's was expanded to its present size in the 1860s it was the largest church in st. Louis over the next century the Jesuit priests continued to staff and operate the parish one time they had five priests to sign here and they would fill this originally the church had 1200 people today it only sees a thousand because the pews have been removed but it's a and they would fill this five times on Sunday and even had a chapel let's look at a table tur that said about 200 people and when they would fill this they would move the people down to the chapel to see that while the 1860's saw st. joseph's as a beacon of light and vitality it was the 1960s when st. Joseph's finally began to wither and fall apart less than a dozen blocks away from st. Joseph's the st. Louis River Front was beginning its own Renaissance the Gateway Arch would loom over the city as a monument to westward expansion and stand as a symbol of the city's effort to revitalize its downtown community but st. Joseph's was not part of that visionary enterprise the church was now mired in a changing neighborhood parishioners were moving out small industries were moving in and st. Joseph's appeared to be doomed deteriorating bit by bit both inside and out Ralph eller brach is the organist at st. Joseph's he grew up in the neighborhood which back then was still a bastion for the German community he began playing the church organ here when he was 12 the original choir when I started my week to all our Christmas carols were in German we sang German Christmas Christmas carols because you had to be German when this church was first started and it was still the sort of the air now he also remembers how the neighborhood began to decline the tenement housing units were replaced with truck terminals as the city tried to turn a dying area into a business centre for the trucking industry as the neighborhood's disintegrated so did the church the tenement houses were all being tore down and the truck lines were taking over around here and the people just I don't know they just lost interest in it and even though the Jesuits were still here at that time that we had maybe about 50 people in church and then it started whittling down and then towards the end when the Jesuits were here by the Rope maybe openly two or three people in church never maybe two of us up on the choir it was a standing joke at the time that there were more pigeons nesting in the church than there were parishioners pigeon droppings were everywhere those around then knew that it was simply a matter of time before st. Joseph's would be abandoned and probably torn down by the archdiocese the bricks in the walls were shown the Robards flying around it was in bad shape and actually the pepper argument did not work at that time because it was so full of pigeon dirt oh there were times when it was really rundown but I thought that it was finished but in the late 70s a group of five men would begin an effort that would ultimately save the church there was Ted Wofford and architect Jean ball a woodworker Charlie finger the owner of a catering firm Bob Voss a st. Louis businessman and Bob Arteaga a st. Louis photographer until they became involved with st. Joseph's they had never met they would form a friendship and an alliance that defied the odds I didn't know how the five of us were appointed but some force back there from st. Joseph's er Jesus Christ had these five men put together and we got it started they were the instruments what some would call the heroes who would begin a 20-year effort that would restore st. Joseph's to its original state they would become the first members of a group they named the shrine of st. Joseph's friends to a man they could somehow see the church's inherent beauty what it was at one time and what it could be again they had the vision to see beneath the debris and understand the true majesty and craftsmanship of the building they had the vision to see what others could not I mean there was a grand jury venire it was still a very very impressive place you could see underneath the dirt and behind and looking past broken plaster and sagging windows and things there was something about it it was my faith in this place I thought it was a magnificent Church when it was the crumbling down and the church proper was the walls were in bad shape the ceilings but it was something about the shrine of Saint Joseph that gets in your blood what what I saw in this interior was an interior that said something back to me that the proportions were elegant were beautiful the glass was unique I thought there there were just there were many beautiful details of carving and things somehow or other as I said it showed it showed care and love and the things that a church should show i walked in i saw it was like a color picture i know for my head i just fell in love with the place and being a woodworker - on my life well i walked in and saw it like this look just like a look i had a picture i just is like a color picture may had I walked in and I saw a finished product the architecture was the unique thing about it was it held together even in spite of every effort to tear it apart I mean the altars worse were spray-painted with Zola tone the worst paint in the world to try to get off the color that was on them was carnival blues and Pink's and stuff I mean they the if you began to analyze any piece it was a disaster but somehow or other when it all got together you didn't care this but the the there was a sense of peace and an order to this building that was uncanny the colors were terrible that had a linoleum floor Battleship linoleum floor that clunked like mad I mean you know it was kind of a yellow the statues were broken literally had dried out and cracked apart the statues throughout the church today are magnificent all of them are carved out of wood st. Peter Claver st. Torres of lassoo the guardian angel the Pieta one of the most dramatic is the statue of st. Joseph as he was dying at his side Jesus and Mary but when the Friends of st. Joseph's began their work this statue and many of the others were an utter disrepair a chasm like crack had all but destroyed the dying Joseph's mill workers would eventually pull the dried out parts back together and restore it to its original splendor there was one other man who would play perhaps the most pivotal role in the restoration of st. Joseph's the 77 year old pastor of the church father Edward Philippi AK it was father Philippi AK who had first pulled together this small posse of visionaries and implored them to take on the task of saving this historic church and I came down the first morning and met the priest who was very old snaggletooth I mean you know certainly nothing great in appearance had a great smile his father Philippi a and I thought my first reaction when I saw that the prime that number one he was living in the worst poverty I'd seen I had done the survey of LaSalle Park and had stepped on vagrants and everything else but I had never seen anybody living in the conditions that he was living in and the rectory had most of the plaster off the walls the electrical system was a very spooky cord hanging from the ceiling that had probably hung there for a hundred years with a light bulb on the end of it he was so frail that he couldn't get in and out of the safe so he had Church records all over the floor where he could access them he lived in one room on the best that could be said for it as high army furniture I don't know anybody else who would live in the conditions that man I'd visit with him yet two and a half inch roaches crawling up the wall and it wasn't habitable for animals much less a human much as a priest and I thought you know what am I getting into we walked through the door into the church and the man totally changed I mean he just radiated and he said isn't it beautiful and I realized then that the reason he lived that way was that every penny that he had and every penny that came into this church he put into keeping the church standing he was bent and determined that this church would survive and from that moment on I was committed I mean they're just you know there was no turning back it had it had to be done at the time Father Philippi AK was one of the oldest priests in the Archdiocese while his role at st. Joseph's was to Pastor the small number of parishioners he also became a watchdog of sorts a gatekeeper who knew that if he ever moved out there would be virtually no hope of saving the church we didn't try to talk him out of staying here because I mean that would be like trying to talk to Mount Rushmore to you know become a gravel pit he was committed he never wavered in and he never allowed us to even do the slightest improvement in the house he totally refused to move and he told me many times I used to stop visit with him he said the day I move out the next morning the headache bill will be in here and he says I ain't moving that's his words I ain't moving he said what was wonderful about him was that he could he was in this what what I guess most priests would view as the perish from Hell and it didn't bother him at all saving st. Joseph's and restoring it would be a nearly impossible task it would take literally years of work by a group of volunteers trying desperately to salvage a Hulk of a building no one seemed to have any use for the first needs were obvious a new roof and the money to put it on so I called up by Bart egg on January 8th I said I got an idea about I says father Phillip you can't raise money but you and I aren't priest I says why don't we start a not-for-profit corporation to set up a fund in a bank where people send the roof was leaking terribly it was you know then nobody would fix it because I think they quite frankly wanted this place to get so bad that had it be torn down and they says we'll raise money for a roof and if we can't pull this thing off the bank will hold the money and if we can't pull it off the people get their money back so they have nothing to lose and if we do put the roof on everybody's gained meantime rumors continue to run rampant that the archdiocese wanted to abandon the parish sell the land and build another Church a few blocks east closer to the new Convention Center about the same time it was discovered that originally the land here at 11th and Biddle had belonged to the Biddle family and had been donated to the archdiocese specifically for the purpose of building st. Joseph's Church the agreement with the archdiocese stipulated that the land could never be sold for a non-religious purpose otherwise the property would revert back to the Biddle estate that meant the archdiocese could not sell the land and reap any financial benefits the Friends of st. Joseph's now had some new life and new hope they would eventually lease the church from the archdiocese for five years at a cost of $1 a year it was an effort to see if this small group of men could do the impossible raised the money needed to restore a church nobody wanted the initial efforts to raise the money were stymied no one wanted to donate or invest any money in a depressed neighborhood for a church that had more pigeons than parishioners father Philippi at contain you to stay in the old directory and kept insisting that no money be spent on him he says Jean don't spend a penny on me she's put it in the church he says I died for this church he refused to move he said I'd die for that Church and he did st. Paul in his letter to the Romans the 8th chapter xxviii verse says that we know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his decree in perhaps the darkest hour in the history of st. Joseph's God would make all things work together for those who were trying so valiantly to rebuild and historic church an act of violence would rally an entire city around this seemingly hopeless cause to save st. Joseph's during the evening of September 29th 1979 three teenage boys entered the rundown rectory made their way upstairs to the second floor room of father Philippi I and brutally murdered him in fact he would stick up for anybody that's why when he was murdered while it was it was just a waste of a life because he would give he would've gave those three boys and did it he would have given him whatever he had they didn't have to do it because he used to sit out on the steps and when kids are go by he'd give him whatever he had in his pocket that's just the type of person he was and they caught the three fellows that murdered them and one was killed in prison one committed suicide in prison and one still is in prison I was floored I mean I really was that it just shocked me in fact that was one of the hardest funerals I ever played I was at home because they called as soon as they had found found the body but and it was it was it was a terrible shot but what it did was it galvanized the community I mean I think without his death we probably wouldn't have done it either father of course would we never believe what had happened after his death but certainly it was his death that really began everything here there were people prior to his death trying to do things but they couldn't seem to get the money to do them and so you know that death really really inspired people say the least none of this would be here if it hadn't been for a true priest to priest of this church more than anyone else could have loved meant everything and everything to him he just had all the faith in the world that we weren't going to fail I think that you and made me continue on and then of course when he was murdered we had to go on there was something driving force behind us that we had it gone in his honor father Philippi acts brutal murder was an energizing force in the months and years that would follow it created enough attention about st. Joseph's that most people now knew about the restoration efforts new volunteers were eager to help Ted Schafer's a business writer for the old globe-democrat became one of the early fundraisers for the shrine I was been a reporter and writer for many years and I knew a lot of the business commemorative community I knew the leaders in labor I covered labor for 10 years so I go to all these people that I know and told him that I was now active and trying to raise money for the shrine of st. Joseph um I expected them to donate and I told him I said I know once you get angry at me I don't like to ask for money but I'm not begging for myself I'm begging for st. Joseph and it worked we we got some substantial money that's the only money that really came in there were days when there were weeks when you were wondering how we're gonna do something you never knew where the money was coming from but it seemed like it I don't it's almost got me believing believing because it just seemed like every time we were at the wit's end of knowing where we were gonna go next something would happen something good would happen somebody come up and leave some money or give you some money I needed I told you the story about how I went trying to get a a little increase on a twenty five hundred dollar donation from a bank and much to my surprise he handed me a check for 25,000 the biggest amount that I've ever gotten involved in was a man who was of Jewish faith and he pledged a $100,000 in $25,000 increments he lived in those tenements and became a millionaire and he thought he owed something to the neighborhood not to the church so much but to the neighborhood the church had been neglected for so long that the endeavor to restore it was unusually demanding and complicated it would require a Herculean effort it was very tough the first few years there was many a time I I didn't my nerves were a little rattled on st. Joseph's kept me going I really think that because when everybody was down on us we ohai always prayed to st. Joe's to help us and again he did more than help us you can't you can't turn back on something like this I mean it was a commitment that I think I think everybody has has made in in a in a sense of of a very serious commitment not a vow but but the kind of thing that you just don't walk away from and there were times when just survival was was an enormous chore and a lot of it came out of people's pockets just to keep thing going the the carpet was laid for free a lot of painting was done for free a lot of carpenter work was done for free and when you start getting that kind of support you begin to think you have a chance we didn't even have a lot of followers in the beginning told us do a good job but we didn't see a lot of money in the beginning but somehow our other down away from fundraisers to wills to money it just keeps growing the unique thing about the restoration has been that it has been so controlled we've only done what we could do with the money and we've been able to control each step of it the same painters have worked from beginning to end they like all of us have gotten a heck of a lot older in the process that now their kids are involved restoring a church like st. Joseph's is not a matter of refinishing or repainting or remodeling restoration means restoring it exactly the way it was first constructed with exactly the same colors but in 1866 there were very few black and white pictures much less color photos so Ted Wolford and his workers had to scrape and chip away more than a century's worth of paint to discover the original colors and when we finally were able to establish the original finishes particularly the surround of the windows which always seemed small when when we began to move with it the the windows didn't seem properly expressed in the space and so we knew there was something happening around them but what it was was very hard to get to because the original decoration was a casein paint that is very fragile and it was under layers and layers and layers of other paints that were like Armour and so it took many many many tries to get the process of MU of removing the paint to stop at the right place in order to document the moldings that ultimately went around the windows and the thing that's been so wonderful about this room is that every time we went through this process and we came to what was really supposed to be there it fit the windows themselves were a major priority repairing and sealing them would preserve the inside of the church from any more weather-related damage the windows were sagging they were literally falling out when we started to restore them they had to be cleaned you can imagine the dirt and they had to be cleaned with a toothbrush each piece they were real netted they were back you know Andrey secured two bars properly but miraculously we were able to match the glass first the roof and some tuckpointing on the outside walls and then the windows after that the pigeon issue what to do with what turned out to be fifty tons of pigeon droppings inside the churches - bell towers when we started the restoration back in 1980 the bells didn't ring because it was so much bird dropping up in the tower so we had to find somebody to clean that out and I didn't volunteer but we found a company and they sent a couple of men up there like in spacesuits because it's so toxic and they start digging it out of there and what they dug out of there was a hundred thousand pounds of bird dropping the work to restore the shrine of Saint Joseph has taken more than two decades and there is still work to be done but none of this would have happened without the hundreds of volunteers who over the years gave their time their energy and in some cases their money to complete the work to date more than three million dollars has been raised and spent to finish the project the shrine once again has become the focal point of the area new housing complexes have been built the neighborhood has been stabilized the restoration project is still in progress at the shrine of Saint Joseph one of the latest efforts centers on the church's giant Pfeffer organ manufactured and first installed in 1890 by the Joseph Pfeffer pipe organ company of Saint Louis it's on the historical landmark in addition to the church so we can't add anything to it like if we want to put chimes or something to it we can't we could put him alongside it but the argon has to be exactly what it was 110 years ago and you can't add anything you can't take anything away it was 1980 by the time there was enough money to restore the organ the first time it had deteriorated over time and did not play at all back then members of the st. Louis organ Society took it apart and repaired it restoring the organ this time the Martin OTT organ company in Saint Louis County and that first day that they came down here I sat up there and watch them take apart I couldn't sleep that night they took my baby apart no it was interesting what they did is they took a piece off at a time and took a picture of the piece there then took a picture of the piece sitting by itself so that they know exactly where every piece of that argument goes that they took off and they took it all to their plan where they are restoring everything from new ivory on the keyboard to a new leather bellow the shrine of st. Joseph the Church of miracles do miracles still happen here Frank Fessler and his wife Julianne think so it's in the summer of 1985 we were big ballpark fans and we knew there was 11 o'clock mass here and we decided to attend Mass before a ball game and immediately fell in love with the shrine and decided this this was the place we were to be Wed at the feathers were married at the shrine their son Frankie and daughter Tess were both baptized here and they believed their prayers were answered here too when their son was born with a serious heart problem my son was born with basically a half of a heart and he had his first surgery he was born with hypoplastic right heart and pulmonary pulmonary atresia and he had his first surgery when he was under 24 hours of age and he sub sub school and they had another surgery when he was nine days old and then three months old six months old and then three years old so he's had a succession of surgeries to correct his for his heart problem and will probably be facing another one down the road we just don't know when and my daughter Tess had one surgery at birth and she is doing fine they were in st. Louis Children's Hospital and one of us came down here almost every day and this is truly the altar of answered prayers for us which it is seen the shrine of st. Joseph's it has helped us through our trying times tremendously with our faith and the friendship and support that is here that's why they're here today the shrine of st. Joseph stands today as an icon in a neighborhood which is now making a comeback new housing is stabilizing this near Northside of st. Louis property values are increasing people are coming from all over the region to attend Sunday Mass at the shrine in many ways the shrine of st. Joseph symbolizes everything good about the human spirit for it to be still standing in this 21st century many would say is a miracle in itself for it took an extraordinary effort from a group of ordinary men men with last names of arteaga Bowl thinning er Voss Wolford and Philippi AK men whose commitment and perseverance whose courage and vision preserved the century-old roots and German heritage of the first families in this parish people like the Lawton backers the ovens the bronze the coal Stetz and the land settles and today they still come here to this glorious church so many people of God with so many needs coming before the altar of answered prayers venerating the relic of st. Peter Claver asking for a favor a healing a miracle another major difference here in the church is the pulpit behind me this pulpit was manufactured here in South st. Louis and installed here in the church in 1894 it's all hand carving out of wood you see little figures that go around the side of the puppet those are four of the doctors of the church around us Saint Jerome Saint Leo and on the far side over here is st. Ambrose the side altar is called the Jesuit altar and the reason it's called the Jesuit altar is that all the statues up there of Jesuits who have become Saints the Jesuit altar is just a memorial to the Jesuits there are three statues of Jesuits who were martyred or who died in a very young age once st. Aloysius Gonzaga who's the patron of youth the other two are st. Stanislaus Kostka in st. John Bertram's and below the a Jesuit altar there's a statue of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sepulchre I don't know if you can see that statue of the Blessed Mother encase behind glass up there but there's a story behind that when the Jesuits extended this church out in 1866 they ordered a new statue of the Blessed Mother from Europe but before the one they had ordered was completed this one was finished and scheduled to go into the Cathedral in Paris France into Notre Dame Cathedral but there was a little war going on between the French and the Prussians the franco-prussian war and the manufacturer couldn't deliver it to Notre Dame so they sent it over here to the Jesuits it's a much more beautiful much more expensive statue of the Blessed Mother than what they had originally ordered and so they encased it behind glass and as far as I can determine that glass has never been removed above the statue of Our Blessed Mother there's a Latin inscription that says act a Matra - ah which means behold your mother and in the silver seal above that it says hail Mary full of grace and then there are other statues of course on the Blessed Mother's altar there's st. Agnes and our Saint Cecilia and below the altar there's a mannequin a saint just in the Bywater st. Justin the boy mater was a teenager who lived in France in the 3rd century and the one one that we're persecuting Catholics and one day after he had taken communion they grabbed him and they slit his throat to try to remove the host out of his throat and that's how he was martyred now I like to go over the details of the altar with you if you look at the very top in the center you see the Sacred Heart and then on either side of the Sacred Heart you see angels the angel over here on my right is holding the cross of salvation and the angel on the other side is holding the anchor of hope but if you come down below the Sacred Heart to see a Latin inscription that says at majorem Dei gloriam which means for the greater glory of God and which is the model of the Jesuits I told you the Jesuits began this parish back in 1843 and they didn't leave here until 1966 that means of course they were here for 123 years and they definitely left their stamp on the altar and on the church below that Latin inscription you see the shield of the holy name and then below that she loved the holy name there's another Latin inscription that says Pete ah ah Joseph which means go to Joseph for your needs and then below that there's the statue of Saint Joseph and the Christ child then below that as the tabernacle and on top of the Tabernacle you see the golden crown for Christ the King and below the tabernacle and through the legs of the altar table you see the sacrificial lamb on the tomb of a martyr representing the Lamb of God if you go back up to the top of the altar you see four statues going across at the top of the altar those are the four evangelists the one over here on my left is Saint John and then st. Luke st. mark and Saint Matthew below those four statues are statues on either side of Saint Joseph and the Christ child over here on my right is Saint Ignatius of Loyola who was the founder of the Jesuits and on the other side the Saint Francis Xavier another early Jesuit if you go back up to the top above the Saint Francis Xavier and between the statues of st. John and Saint Luke you see some gold lettering on the blue background that says X and voto which is Latin for from a vowel or a fulfillment of a vow the vow that the parishioners had made to stop the cholera epidemic and then below that in Roman numerals you see the Year 1866 which was the year that the altar was actually made although not installed here until 1867 on the other side between the statues of Saint Mark and Saint Matthew there's some more gold lettering on the blue background that says in Latin altar and below that privileged this is a privileged altar a privilege granted by the Vatican for whom every recrea masses said that person will receive planetary indulgences if you go above the high altar into the ceiling of the sanctuary you see the paintings in the center is our Blessed Mother in the Assumption mode and on my left over here on her her right is her parents st. Anne and Saint Joachim and on the other side of her is Abraham where we came from and synched and King David because st. Joseph flustered the house of David the two nailing angels sitting on the floor alongside at the altar in the pink robes were installed here in 1894 the same year that this puppet was installed here and manufactured by the same company here in South st. Louis a good Irish company called the Schneider honey now you know for many decades this church was lit by Gaslight and all that carbon from that gas went up there and stuck on the ceiling so they had to clean it off before they could repaint it it took them two years and $200,000 to clean it and to repaint it after that was completed they came down and they redid the puppet the Jesuits had painted the puppet an off-white so we had it restored to its natural color that it cost a $5,600 after that was completed then we redid these columns here these are hollow wooden columns they're just walnut steam bent to make them circular they put linen on the outside and then they paint it to look like there's they are marble but in fact they're hollow wooden columns the next project we had was to restore these pubes these are the original cues from the 1860s now people ask me why are they divided why do they have a division here while the Jesuits used to rent out the pews you want a few 20 for the nine o'clock mass you paid the Jesuits a dime so they could then rent the side and they could rent that side and make 26 people also ask me why are they up on a platform well back in the 1860s when they were installed here heating wasn't too good and it was warmer for people to sit up on a platform so when you get out of the Pew please step down and thank you for visiting the shrine of st. Joseph you

Channel: Micheal L

Views: 46,847

Keywords: Miracle, Proof, Relic, Church, Catholic, Evidence

Id: NZ8aAm50nII

Length: 53min 17sec (3197 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2016