Resurrection parish has new worship space, same 50-year spirit of welcome

The 50th anniversary celebration of Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City will be marked in a variety of ways throughout 2024, and the year’s most significant event took place May 17.

That night, 700 parishioners attended the Mass of Dedication that christened the parish’s long-awaited, reconstructed and renovated new church.

Monsignor John A. Dietzenbach, in his 15th year as the Howard County parish’s pastor, joined Archbishop William E. Lori, who led the dedication. Monsignor Dietzenbach, who guided the nine-year project, said the entirety of the rebuild – including a proper sanctuary, new chapel and pastoral center, new gym for the adjacent Resurrection School and a spacious coffee lounge in the new church building – was completed at a cost of nearly $21 million.

The planning had been in the works since 2015, but a pair of devastating floods in Old Ellicott City in 2016 and 2018, followed by the COVID pandemic, delayed the building.

“It’s been a long process with setbacks that pushed us back about four years. COVID was harder on us than this construction,” said Dietzenbach, referencing the original “Vision 2020” capital campaign. “Some of (our parishioners) have been waiting for a new church for about 50 years.”

Church of the Resurrection, with 2,400 registered families, is linked to history that dates to 1838, when St. Paul (Resurrection’s “mother church”) was founded in Old Ellicott City, where it remains today. St. Paul and Church of the Resurrection became a pastorate in 2019.

When Howard County started transitioning from a rural population in the 1950s and ’60s to becoming part of Baltimore’s suburban metro area, St. Paul parish funded a building project that in 1966 produced a needed new school and church facility nearby on Paulskirk Drive. That is the current location of what is now Resurrection-St. Paul School and Church of the Resurrection.

The school facility as originally constructed also served as part of St. Paul’s extended parish. In 1974, Resurrection was established. It first seated worshipers in a makeshift auditorium, then shifted to what was originally intended to be the school’s gymnasium.

“The church began without a specific plan. Building a new church was a priority for years before I got here, but other priorities would take over,” said Monsignor Dietzenbach, who often preached before several hundred parishioners in a large crowded tent for nearly two years, next to where the new church was being finished. “Our parishioners have been very patient.”

Resurrection also celebrateD its milestone with a pastorate picnic June 9. Future events include an organ concert starring the parish’s new pipe organ later this summer, an anniversary sit-down dinner with entertainment Nov. 2 and a 50th anniversary fall festival.

The parish also will continue to serve the community at large with its robust outreaches and ministries.

“This has always been a very inclusive and vibrant parish,” said Jeanne Dell’ Acqua, who moved with her family from Baltimore City to Columbia, and attended her first Mass at Church of the Resurrection in July 1976. Now, 48 years later at age 82, Dell’ Acqua is still participating.

“The religious education program was the first I had seen that was for parents as well as their children. My kids were 6 and 8 then,” said Dell’ Acqua, who taught middle-school children at Sunday school for years. “That hooked me for good.”

Resurrection, in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul, serves nearly 2,000 Howard County neighbors per year with food, rental or utility assistance and emergency funds for medication needs. Its ministries also include feeding the hungry at Our Daily Bread and through Hot Meals for the Homeless.

Before COVID interrupted the tradition, a contingent of Resurrection members traveled for an annual mission to San Bartolo Parish in El Salvador, where they worked at a medical clinic, built a library, assisted with housing improvements and supplied food.

Resurrection also sends donations to St. Mary’s Parish in Palestine and serves 120 people in SSSMILE Village in Kerala, India, by providing solidarity and financial support that helps to pay for food, shelter and medicine.

“We are so happy to have a much-needed, much more inviting worship space now,” Dell’ Acqua said. “But our sense of community is what attracted me and it’s still the most important thing here.”

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