History

The Shrine was established in 1924 and continues to be operated by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity to this day.  During Fr. Judge’s time serving with a parish in New York, he witnessed pilgrims arriving from Italy and Ireland to America.  With them they brought the deep Catholic traditions of their faith.  He quickly noticed the need to preserve the faith of the immigrant families and foster the formation of the faithful laity as missionary disciples of Jesus.

Fr. Judge established the Shrine as a place for all to be renewed in faith and sent out as missionaries in the providence of their everyday life. A place to grow in understanding that every Catholic is an apostle.  The Shrine is a “Mission Center”, a place of learning, celebrating, healing and sending. As a Mission Center the religious and lay staff minister under the Missionary Servant Rule of Life which states: “Our specific mission is the preservation of the faith in areas and among people who are spiritually neglected and abandoned, especially the poor. Our chief effort is to develop a missionary spirit in the laity, with the goal that every Catholic be an apostle.”

Our Founder, Fr. Thomas A. Judge, C.M. was a Vincentian priest whose apostolic zeal led him to organize small groups of lay men and women to love and serve God in the ordinary circumstance of their lives. In 1909, a formal meeting of what was to become the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. in St. John’s Parish.

From this lay organization came two new missionary religious congregations: the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (priests and Brothers) and the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (Sisters). The Blessed Trinity Missionary Institute is a vowed laity who have come forth to serve. These four branches are known as the Missionary Cenacle Family.

In 1915, Father Thomas Judge was assigned to the eastern part of Alabama. What he found in the towns were mill workers living in the most deplorable conditions. In the countryside, sharecroppers barely eked out a living on their small plots of land. Father Judge encountered prejudice against Catholics, founded on misconceptions about the Church and fear of the unfamiliar.

With his customary zeal, he went about his missionary work among the people in Alabama, taking every opportunity to preach, both in formal church settings and more informally whenever a situation allowed. He encouraged non-practicing Catholics to return to the sacraments. With those of other faiths, he tried to dispel their myths about Catholicism. He remained within the social and cultural norms of the day but challenged them by directing his efforts to poor white mill workers and black sharecroppers.

The “southern heritage” left us by Fr. Judge is as vital today as it was in his time. The way it is expressed has necessarily changed with the times, but the Southern missions remain a productive field for our special brand of missionary work: preservation of the faith with a special focus on developing a missionary spirit in the laity. Today, our missionaries are serving in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.