TOLEDO (WTOL) - St. John XXIII Catholic Church in Perrysburg has been a parish without a church for 13 years.
Not any longer.
On Thursday night members celebrated their first mass in a stunning new church.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. We’ve been waiting a long time for it,” said church-goer, Terry Stewart.
The approach they took was to build the church community before they built the church.
“We built our multi-purpose space because we needed everything; stayed there until could we pay that off and plan to do it right,” said Reverend Herb Weber.
The parish has grown over the years.
There are now 1,500 households with over 4,300 parishioners.
The sanctuary seats 900 people in a semi-circle around the alter.
One member of the parish said that she noticed the simplicity of the new church.
“There’s just beautiful light and then if you look at the crucifix -- the simplicity of the crucifix is awesome as well as the stations of the cross,” said Ingrid Beavers.
Reverend Weber said that it’s a church he wants people to know they’ve been to.
“Sometime people sleepwalk their way through church, and I want the people to know that the word of God, the sacrament, is alive and they are part of it,” he said.
Masses are held at 5 p.m. on Saturdays and 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Sundays.
