Ave Maria!
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church in Centralia, PA has been given the status of an official holy pilgrimage site by their bishop Stefan Soroka. This is most astonishing since it is literally the only remaining functioning building in a town that was thriving with thousands of residents just a few decades ago. It was completely razed to the ground by the state government due to a coal mine fire started in the sixties and still burning beneath the abandoned streets. Our Blessed Mother has given them a little slice of heaven in a town consumed by hellish fires.
Imagine a once-thriving town with seven churches, businesses, schools, and working families — now with less than 10 residents. Imagine all but a handful of those homes and building once alive but now mostly razed. Imagine only one beautiful structure left. The only one that remains fully alive and thriving in the ghost town. Imagine no more because the municipality is Centralia, Penn., and the only one, thriving edifice is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church. So flourishing, in fact, that it has been designated a holy pilgrimage site and was chosen to have a Holy Door of Mercy in the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. The pilgrimage begins in a big way on Sunday, Aug. 28, the feast of the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God celebrated on the Julian calendar. Much will go on beginning with the Divine Liturgy celebrated by the archeparchy’s Metropolitan-Archbishop Stefan Soroka and other priests. Great Town to Ghost Town. Once a successful coal-mining town, Centralia had a turnabout in the spring of 1962. Some hot ash put into the town’s dump-landfill somehow ignited a vein of coal beneath the spot. Fast forward to 1979…
Source: The Strange Case of the Pilgrimage Site in a Pennsylvania Ghost Town |Blogs | NCRegister.com
