Journey to attend Mass at every Pastorate began at Retreat Center

Look for this article and more pictures in the January 15th issue of The Catholic Moment 

“I believe God puts things in front of me that I can’t ignore,” said Annette Biever, parishioner at St. Mary Alexandria. “I try to listen and ask him for the gifts I need for the journey.” 

While visiting the St. Joseph Retreat & Conference Center for an Ignatian Day of Reflection in July 2021, God whispered an idea that truly had Biever travelling. 

“At the retreat, I walked down the hallway with all the pictures of the churches in our diocese,” Biever said. “I left that day thinking in my head, wow, we have some awfully beautiful churches in our diocese. I need to go see these. I don’t know if it was the Holy Spirit prompting me. Probably.” 

Shortly after the retreat center opened in 2017, Vicar General Father Ted Dudzinski asked Blessed Sacrament Parishioner Brooke Folkers to coordinate artwork for the then empty walls of the facility. 

“I wanted the first floor to reflect the whole of the diocese because it is a place for everyone in every pastorate,” Father Dudzinski said. “Brooke reached out to every pastorate to get a photograph of their church and had each one matted and framed to hang in the main level hallway of St. Joseph’s.” 

Biever started her journey to visit every church in the diocese, all 61 of them, in August 2021. 

“I would select a church to visit on the spur of the moment,” said Biever, who grew up in Hammond across the street from her family’s church. “I let the Holy Spirit guide me.”  

Often on Fridays, Biever, who works nights at the Meijer store in Anderson, would look up mass times for the weekend.  

“I learned to look up mass times in the most recent bulletin online because the church website was not always updated,” she added. “It was important for me to attend the mass, not just visit the church.” 

At each church, she took a bulletin as a souvenir and tried to speak with the presiding priest. She kept a list of each church she attended and wrote notes in her well-worn copy of A History of the diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana by Anthony Joseph Prosen, 2006. 

Biever didn’t limit herself to weekend masses. She became a daily mass attender about three years ago when the Uniting in Heart initiative established the Anderson-Alexandria Pastorate among St. Mary Alexandria, St. Ambrose Anderson and St. Mary Anderson parishes.  

“It is crucial for me to attend a mass every day,” Biever shared. “I’ve found that the more I get to know the Lord, the more I fall in love with him. I haven’t been doing this very long, but it has totally changed my life.”  

Travelling the diocese--the 24 counties that cover more than 9000 square miles—wasn’t daunting for Biever. She spent 14 years as an Indiana State Trooper.  

After earning an associate degree in law enforcement from Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting, Biever joined that state police and was assigned to Pendleton. She retired in 1995. 

The only drawback of her travels was hearing “road closed: detour” from her mapping app!  

“I was making my way to St. Mary’s Dunnington on the Indiana-Illinois border when the app suddenly announced, ‘speed trap ahead.’ I was going a little fast, so I slowed down,” Biever said. “Sure enough, someone was pulled over up ahead.”  

“I had to guestimate travel time because of road closures and detours,” she added. “Google maps became my friend.”  

At some churches, Biever didn’t just attend mass, she got involved with the work of the pastorate.  

“I realized on this church journey that there are wonderful parishioners in this diocese who love to tell you about their church and the history of their church,” Biever said. “And they’re very friendly.” 

She typically hung around the churches after mass to admire things like the tabernacle, the stations of the cross, the architecture, the paintings, and the baptismal font so she could soak in all the history of the church.  

She decided to attend Palm Sunday mass at St. Joseph Pulaski.  

“As I’m with the Lord after mass, someone invited me eat at their annual chicken noodle dinner, so I did,” Biever said. “Then, they asked if she wanted to help serve, and I was happy to!” 

One Saturday she went to mass at St. Joseph Lebanon and they were boxing up meals.  

“Would you like to help us box up meals,” they asked. “Absolutely, was my answer. I’m a volunteer from the get-go.” 

Biever shared there were so many wonderful people at the churches—she was often invited for coffee and doughnuts after mass, and she always accepted. She collected names of people throughout the diocese and has reached out to many of them. 

Biever also liked to look at the outside of the church and look at the cornerstone to see what year the church was built.  

“Especially with the older churches I marvel at how many thousands of people have encountered the Lord and received the Lord there in that spot,” Biever recounted. “I could really feel the sacredness of the churches.” 

She also learned to pay attention to the weather after a tricky driving experience enroute to St. Joseph Rochester. Leaving Anderson with good weather, she encountered snow flurries around Grissom and by the time she arrived in Rochester there was three inches of snow on the ground. 

“When I saw a car off the road at my exit, I thought, note to self: check the weather before you leave next time,” Biever shared. 

There were other visits that she’s sure, only by the grace of God, did she arrive home safely. 

“I was driving my 30-year-old car home from Lafayette and noticed a noise when I wasn’t far from home,” Biever shared. “Come to find out the wheel was so loose it was ready to come off!”  

But she also recalls many beautiful sunrises and sunsets along the way.  

While Biever is married with two grown children, she usually visited the churches on her own. Sometimes a friend traveled with her. Other times she would ride alone praying a rosary, listening to CDs or just spending quiet time in the car with the Lord. 

“I’d drive home from the mass rethinking the homily or the readings,” she reminisced. “Or I’d have the last hymn stuck in my head the whole way home.” 

She felt at home in each of the churches; although, she acknowledged parishioners at the smaller churches knew she wasn’t ‘a local.’ But those parishioners were some of the most welcoming. 

“I am so blessed. As I drove, I would just thank God for blessing me that I could take this trip to see him in all of these homes of his,” Biever said. 

At least one priest asked which church was her favorite. 

 “I told him,  ‘those in which our Lord resides,’ ” Biever said. “He said, ‘well, that’s all of them.’ And I said, ‘you’re right.’ ” 

She does admit to being drawn, architecturally, to the older churches from the 1800s like Holy Trinity Bryant and St. Joseph Pulaski.  

“And St. Mary Muncie’s gothic church is really interesting, architecturally,” Biever added. “I’ve never been in another one like that.”  

Throughout her journey, she noticed things like that St. Joseph Elwood and St. Charles Borromeo are similar and were probably built around the same time. 

“And then you have the churches up in the Newton Jasper Pastorate,” Biever added. “St. Augusta Lake Village is a few miles from St. Cecilia Demotte which is a few miles from Sorrowful Mother Wheatfield all along Indiana State Road 10. They put a church every 20 miles or so because that was as far as the horses could go.” 

While it doesn’t happen at every church, Biever sometimes gets a feeling from the holy spirit as she worships in the new space.  

“As soon as I walked into St. Ann Lafayette, I felt ‘God smiles on this church,” Biever shared. “And at St. Joseph Kentland I got a strong feeling about all the history of that church. At St. Joseph’s Lebanon the message was ‘this is a happy place.’ “ 

She also admits to being drawn to the stained glass and architecture of St. Patrick Kokomo. And she frequently attends mass at St. Lawrence Muncie, St. Mary Muncie and St. Joseph Elwood. She is also active with St. Ambrose Anderson as it is a part of her pastorate. 

While Biever feels like she technically finished her church journey with the opening of St. John the Baptist in Tipton November 9, 2022, she is missing a few churches.  

Sacred Heart Remington is still under reconstruction after the December 28, 2020, fire. And St. Francis Solano Francesville is only used for weddings, funerals and the St. Francis Solano feast day. 

“I realized I’d missed the July 14th feast day mass a week after it happened,” Biever said. “But there’s probably a reason why I didn’t get to go last year. God just hasn’t shown me yet.” 

While she attended mass at the retreat center before her church journey officially started, she hasn’t attended one of the 6:30 am daily masses with the Poor Clare nuns of Kokomo yet. 

“I probably won’t ever be done. I’ve sort of started over already because there are churches I’d like to visit again. I know there’s things I missed the first time,” she recalled. 

Biever encourages others to take this journey, a pilgrimage of sorts throughout the diocese. But she doesn’t recommend a time limit or a schedule.  

“I believe God called me to this experience,” Biever said, “and I don’t know why. I don’t think it was about me, I think it was God drawing me closer to him.”