‘To find your people’ – How Catholics are building intentional communities
St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit is a thriving parish.
Just minutes from the center of downtown Detroit, the stunning, historic church boasts a burgeoning congregation and a thriving parish life, with events including processions, galas, and a weekend-long Oktoberfest that includes a stein-holding competition and live pony rides.
The parish has roughly 400 affiliated households, almost twice the number it had five years ago.
Unlike most parishes, which are based on geography, St. Joseph’s is a personal parish, set up specially in canon law as a home for Catholics with a devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass.
But some 90% of the parishioners don’t actually live in Detroit. They drive from all over – in some cases, up to two hours, to attend Mass at the shrine each Sunday.
And when people live so far apart, it can be hard to build community, believes Daniel Egan, an entrepreneur and parishioner at the shrine.
“I would say on average, people probably drive between 30-45 minutes,” he told The Pillar.
Egan was born in Detroit, but had moved away and spent three years in seminary in Nebraska. He was almost ordained a priest but eventually discerned that God was calling him to a different path.
During his time in Nebraska, Egan said, he experienced what a blessing strong parish life could be.
When Egan returned to Detroit a number of years ago, he found himself needing that community.
“I was coming to this realization that I needed to live somewhere where I had a really strong parish life,” he said.
Egan admits that he didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for the Detroit area, even though he was born there.
