Stations of the Cross at St. Mary's Church

You are welcome to join us on Fridays in St. Mary’s Church during Lent at 7:00 p.m. in the Church with musical accompaniment.

March 7, 14, 21, and 28 and April 4 and 11

About the Stations

The pastor of St. Mary’s at the time of
its construction, Mons. McMahon, was the brother of the Bishop of
Hartford, Connecticut. It is no coincidence that both St. Mary’s in
Charlestown and St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hartford had many of the same
contractors, including Keely.

Our exceptional Stations of the Cross
were constructed by the great ecclesiastical sculptor, Joseph Sibbel
(1850-1907). Sibbel sculpted many important works, including the famous
statue of St. Patrick at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

Sibbel designed two identical sets of
Stations:  one went to St. Mary’s, the other to the Cathedral in
Hartford, which unfortunately was destroyed by fire in 1956. However,
Sibbel made a similar, slightly larger set of Stations, still in
existence at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock, Arkansas
(another church built by Keely, with Mayer windows!).

It is believed that our altar was
designed by Thomas Houghton (Keely’s son-in-law and partner) and built
by Charles E. Hall & Company of Boston, with statues by Sibbel. An
almost identical altar by Hall, Houghton, and Sibbel was built in 1894
for the now-defunct Our Lady of Mercy Church in Brooklyn, New York.
Sibbel created the statuettes of the Twelve Apostles and the two
Archangels for that Brooklyn altar, and most likely for ours as well.