What a sunny, temperate, blue skies day spent with a holy priest, Fr. Joel Bugas, who welcomed me, heard confessions, celebrated mass, and then had lunch with Myrna Samson and me. I consider Myrna my family here in New Mexico. The skies mirrored my experience with them.

The church is a 106-year-old Church that was closed for some time. A holy priest took over: mass attendance grew, confessions were held almost daily, a prayer garden was erected with five-foot-high statues of St. Pedro Calungsod and St. Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila and tribute plaques to remember the dead in one’s family; a storage room padlocked for decades was opened, and each room is being restored to become offices, a deacon’s room, and another kitchen. The bell tower is being restored, and it was the original one erected 106 years ago.

A new front gate was installed, and the front door was refurbished after being vandalized.

There’s a special energy in this Church, undertaking restoration projects at a feverish pace. Fr. Joel also paints, restores artifacts, and is preparing the Virgin Mary statues he has collected for an upcoming Marian exhibit in 2023.

During the pandemic, he created beautiful paintings of Sacred Hearts, ten total

Inside, it felt like a Sacred Art Gallery Museum, and so so beautifully done. What a strategic visionary priest to have the community empowered by him and God to help out with projects inside the Church. He also leads Marian Pilgrimages and visits to different sites where Saints lived.

His pilgrimages manifest many miracles, he will not discuss any of that as he is quite humble, but the parishioners shared these marvels: being able to say mass at St. Peter’s womb reserved only for bishops; being able to use the rdd missal used by Padre Pio and to say mass in that chapel; mass celebrated at Notre Dame chapel reserved for local priests; being able to pray the rosary with fellow priests at Our Lady of Fatima, and mass in 2017 in front of his favorite saint in Poland, Our Lady of Chestosowa, also known as the Black Madonna, “Our Lady of Częstochowa, is a venerated icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary housed at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, Poland.” #Pilgrimages