First Communions and May Processions over the Years

Receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion for the first time has always been a milestone in the faith journey of a Catholic, whether - adult or child. Nearly 200 years ago, just months after the consecration of our first church, Fr. McElroy held a three day “preparatory retreat” for thirty future first communicants. Two days later on March 25, 1824, seventeen first communicants, five of whom were converts, celebrated their First Holy Communion.[1]   
Almost 100 years later, on Christmas Day in 1915, Fr. Kavanagh gave young girls and boys – and at least one adult – 24-year-old William Bunke, their First Holy Communion. The Frederick papers reported that Mary Angela Sappington dedicated “… a few lines to the little girls and boys who were instructed by Rev. Fr. S. J. Kavana[u]gh for their First Holy Communion at the mid-night mass…”

Today, First Holy Communions are generally held in the Spring - in April or May, and celebrating First Holy Communion at Saint Peter’s has continued to be a very special and memorable occasion for children, parents and the parish family. In more recent times, however; preparation into the meaning and purpose of the sacrament begins more than a year in advance.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame took a leading role as the catechists for this sacrament while they were running the Notre Dame Academy (1892-1965) and then staffing St. Peter’s School (1965-1970). In 1970, Sister Catherine Ann Birch (for whom the Birch Library is named) remained on the campus to open St. Peter’s Religious Education Center, training lay volunteers to teach a CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) program, remaining seven years, through February 1977. After Sister’s departure, coordinators of the Early Religious Education program included Martha Langdon, Sr. Joan May O.P. and Carmela Douds. From 1994 through 2012, Anne Mason served in that role for the Parish and for the past 13 years this role has been held by Stacy Wright.

Under Anne and now Stacy’s direction, parents gather several times throughout the year for instruction and prayer. Participation in weekend retreat liturgies for both First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion is a priority as well as attendance at Mass, to learn about the way we as Catholics pray through the Mass.

During Anne’s tenure, the First Communion retreat was known as ‘Come to the Table’ day, which included a day where the history of bread was taught by Margie Gaudino and the children would bake their own prayer bread to share at home. Banners, made by the children, were used to designate family pews at the celebration, and this practice continues today. Anne would gave a study on the Last Supper and Eucharist; Terri Jackson would give a detailed tour of the Church, explaining every important aspect of the vessels and vestments used during liturgy; and Donna Leo would hold a “mock” Mass having her son, Vincent, pose as the priest. Today, our pastor, Fr. Chuck Wible, conducts a Church tour and explains the parts of the Mass as well and his garments and why he wears what he does during Mass as one part of the First Communion retreat. Music has always played an important part the celebration; today the children learn their Communion song during the First Communion retreat as part of the three stations in which they participate.

In more recent years, First Communion Celebrations occur near the end of April. Prior to the building of the new church, the Parish held up to 6 separate celebrations over two weeks, in order to accommodate everyone in the smaller church. Since 2009, even with a class size of 136 (in 2012), everyone has been accommodated in a single celebration in the third and current Church. The children meet in the Daily Mass Chapel and the Knights of Columbus lead the children to their family pews followed by the Presider and Servers. It truly does “take a village.”

Another devotion which St. Peter’s continues to celebrate each Spring is the May Procession, or May Crowning. May has traditionally been the month in which Catholics focus on Mary. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, school age boys and girls would process to a statute of the Blessed Mary dressed in their finery (often First Holy Communion attire), where songs to Mary would be sung and Mary would be crowned with flowers. At St. Peter’s, in years past, the girl in the 8th grade with the highest academic grade would be chosen May Queen, to crown Mary, and the girl with the next highest academic grade was chosen as her attendant. The celebration started with a procession to the Grotto with singing Marian hymns and the May Queen would place a flower crown on our Lady of Lourdes statue. In the 1980’s, families brought flowers from their garden and the May procession was held inside, by processing as a congregation after the 9am Sunday Mass within the Second Church and crowning the statue of Mary in a ‘grotto’ under the Choir steps at the back of the Church. Today, the Parish honors our Blessed Mother by processing outdoors to the Grotto as a group after the 11am Sunday Mass, singing songs and placing flowers in Mary’s honor.


[1] Archives of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, Box #10/Folder # 14, on deposit at the Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.

Other Key Moments in St Peter's History

Monsignor John A. Dietzenbach

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John Augustine Dietzenbach was born on December 9, 1951 at West Union, Iowa, the second of six children. He grew up on a family farm near Fort Atkinson, Iowa and attended St. Luke Church and school in St. Lucas, Iowa. After graduating from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1974 with a BA double major in Business Administration and Philosophy, he attended St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park, Baltimore, MD. He graduated with a Masters of Divinity in Theology from there in December of 1978 and during his last year in the seminary, he sought incardination (the official acceptance by one diocese of a clergyman from another diocese) with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Fr. John was assigned to All Saints Parish on Liberty Road in January 1979, where he remained through his deaconate ordination on May 24, 1980 and his ordination to the priesthood on November 29, 1980. In the summer of 1981 he was assigned to St. Elizabeth Parish on Baltimore Street where he remained for 5 ye
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St. Peter’s Bicentennial

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The most recent key moment in St. Peter’s history is the commemoration of the parish’s bicentennial. 2021 marked 200 years since the establishment of the parish and the beginning of construction of our first church building, a stone chapel, on land donated by the Coale family. In September 1823, the newly completed first church was consecrated by Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal of Baltimore. To commemorate this milestone, a Bicentennial Committee consisting of 20 parishioners planned a number of activities beginning in September 2022 and culminating in Fall 2023. In order to carry out these plans without impacting the parish’s normal operating budget, Bicentennial fundraising efforts were undertaken. Early on, a logo was developed showcasing the current church with the extant portion of the second church prominently featured. This logo was used in the development of a Bicentennial ornament, which has been sold over the past year. A ticketed Bicentennial Ball dinner dance is planned f
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Deacons John Martin, Jerry Jennings and Michael Dvorak

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“I’ve come to serve.” That was the response called out by John Martin in May 2009 and by Jerry Jennings and Michael Dvorak in May 2011 as each was called forward from the pews of Baltimore’s Cathedral of Mary Our Queen to be ordained as deacons by then-Archbishop (now Cardinal) O’Brien. When asked today to talk about their roles as deacons assigned to St. Peter’s, they each summarize by saying “I’m here to serve.” Both Deacon John and Deacon Jerry have served in our military, and Deacon Mike works for the Employee Assistance Program for the Department of Defense.  Deacon John was in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves, while Deacon Jerry is a retired U.S. Army Colonel.  All are husbands and fathers, and Deacons John and Jerry are grandfathers. They each talk about how blessed they are to serve in our parish which values its deacons and allows them to exercise their full diaconal ministry through the liturgy, sacraments, preaching and outreach ministries.  Over the years, our d
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Fr. Martin W. Flahavan

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 Fr. Flahavan was a man of varied talents.  One example was a Marian Children’s Missal with Martin Flahavan featured in photos celebrating Mass.  This Missal, published by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, was designed to help children prepare for their First Communion, and was widely purchased throughout the country by parents for their children in the 1950’s and 60’s. In all the parishes he was assigned to, he was perpetually active doing something to advance the mission of the Catholic Church.   At St. Peter’s, where he was assigned from 1961 to 1965, he constructed a basketball court, developed the largest Altar Boy Society in the history of St. Peter’s, revived the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, organized an Usher Society, began high  school and adult discussion groups in cooperation with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (known to many of us as CCD), made major maintenance improvements to the church and (old) rectory, renovated the parish hall, and developed a new
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Religious Educators of our Children Over the Years

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While the religious education of our children has always been the responsibility of their parents (and extended family), there is documented evidence that the Jesuits who visited Libertytown in early years of the Parish, and later the diocesan pastors, provided specific instruction to our young, prior to their receiving their First Holy Communion and Confirmation. Archive materials from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, however; provide us with our earliest window into the beginnings of formal religious education at St. Peter’s. From these records we learn that the religious women from that Order, beginning with Sr. Theophora Foley and Sr. Fidelis de Katow, moved into their new convent on October 25, 1892. This convent was adjacent to the school where they would be teaching – Notre Dame Academy (now occupied by the Parish office staff). Records don’t indicate how many sisters were teaching at the school at one time, but in 1935, the number of religious in the community were reduced t
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Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

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Catholics in Libertytown were blessed to interact with some of the major pillars of early Catholicism in the United States. For example, the first US bishop, John Carroll, was involved in the initial discussions about the possibility of a church in Liberty. Fr. John Dubois, who would go on to become Bishop of New York had ministered to Catholics here, as did Fr. John McElroy who completed our first church and later founded Boston College. Very notably, they also interacted with the first American born saint! Some eight decades before St. Peter’s would open the Notre Dame Academy, and a decade before our first church building even got underway, a young lady from Libertytown would benefit from the fact that the first free Catholic school for female education staffed by religious women in the U.S. opened here in her county. “Received the sum of twenty five dollars for three months advance payment for the board + tuition of Miss Sarah Coale,” reads a September 1811 receipt signed by Mo
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Father John McElroy, S. J.

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The priest who saw to the completion of the first St. Peter’s church was one very busy Jesuit. He was also responsible for building other local Catholic churches and schools before moving onto important roles from Mexico to Massachusetts. John McElroy came to the US from his native Ireland as a young man in 1803. He was ordained a priest in 1817 at the age of thirty-five. He was sent to Frederick in 1822 to aid the ailing pastor of St John the Evangelist Church, Fr. Francis Maleve, S.J. the successor to Fr. John Dubois, S.S. After arriving, Fr. McElroy, S.J. stayed with Fr. Maleve until he passed away a few days later, on Oct 3, 1822. Fr. McElroy was subsequently named pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church. St. Peter’s was a mission of St. John’s, as was St. Joseph’s on Carrollton Manor. While here, Fr. McElroy continued to build the church in our community…both figuratively & literally. Fr. McElroy’s journal notes that he made his first visit to Liberty on Nov. 12, 1822, and
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James McSherry Coale

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The building of the second St. Peter’s Church (dedicated in 1871, accidentally burned in 2004) was made possible by the generosity of the son of Richard and Catharine McSherry Coale who had donated the land and funding for our first church, dedicated in September 1823.   As our parish outgrew the original stone chapel, James McSherry Coale, son of Richard and Catharine, helped see to construction of a new brick church next to it. James was born in Libertytown on January 19, 1805, educated at Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg, and later studied law under Richard Potts of Frederick.   He was an Elector in the Electoral College for the 1836 and 1840 Presidential elections.   As noted in another Key Moment it was James, who had inherited the land where our church sits, who followed through in November 1867 on his late father’s intention that the 2 acres be transferred to the Catholic Church.   The “better late than never” transfer facilitated efforts to construct the larger church that the
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Consecration of St. Peter’s First Church

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Jesuit records reflect that the building of St. Peter’s first church was initially overseen by the Jesuit pastor of Frederick, Fr. Maleve. When Fr. Maleve died in October 1822, his successor, Fr. John McElroy, S.J. stepped in to see the completion of Liberty’s Catholic church. St. Peter’s was consecrated on September 28, 1823, as recorded in the diaries of both Archbishop Maréchal and Fr. McElroy: “I set out for Liberty town and got out at Mr. Coales’s, an earnest and zealous man, and owner of all the land about the town. He built a fine stone chapel and intends to give land for a graveyard, and very likely, a presbytery, garden and pasture: great prospect for an ecclesiastical establishment." - Arch Bishop Maréchal diary entry September 26, 1823 [i] “On the 28th I blessed the church. A great crowd from the neighborhood, and singers from Frederick and a fortepiano. Mass with the deacon and sub-deacon. I spoke twice, first on dedication of the church and secondly on confirmat
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Dedication of the Third Church

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“Woo-hoo!” shouted an excited parishioner, breaking the hush a few seconds after Msgr. Dietzenbach opened the doors. Perhaps a bit more vocal than the consecration 200 years ago of our first church, but no doubt very similar in sentiment to the consecration of our first church. Countless hours, lots of energy and significant effort went into making sure this most recent dedication was as flawless as possible. It was no small undertaking to arrange for a dedication liturgy involving a Cardinal, an Archbishop, 2 Bishops, more than 40 priests and deacons and a congregation numbering 800. Of interest, the youngest parishioner in attendance was Ava Folger, who was only 13 days old on the 7th of September and our most senior parishioner to witness the Dedication was Anne Morrissey, 104 years of age at the time. Two hundred years ago, in 1823, Fr. McElroy’s diary contained the following specifics concerning the procession preceding the liturgy of the consecration of the first church: “… s
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