Sacred Heart of Mary (Diocese of Little Rock)

From Saintapedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search


Sacred Heart of Mary
Dedication: Sacred Heart of Mary
Type/Classification: Territorial Parish
Non-Parochial: No
Operated By: Diocesan clergy
Venerated Saints: None specified
Diocese: Diocese of Little Rock
Deanery:
Address: 1301 Frank St., Barling, Arkansas 72923
City: Barling, AR
Subdivision: Arkansas
Country: United States
County: Sebastian County
Website: No website specified
Founded:
School: No
Email: None specified
AI Confidence: 6/10
Review Level: 0/5


Sacred Heart of Mary is a territorial parish of the Diocese of Little Rock, located in Barling, Arkansas, a small community in Sebastian County near Fort Smith. The parish is dedicated under a Marian title honoring the Sacred Heart of Mary, and its origins trace to a rural mission chapel served by monks of Subiaco Abbey and the Order of Saint Benedict in the early twentieth century.

According to Arkansas Catholic, the diocesan newspaper, the parish's roots reach back to German immigrant families who settled the nearby Springhill colony in the 1850s after fleeing political oppression in Prussia; their descendants later organized the Barling mission around 1902.[1] Today the parish serves a small but multicultural congregation, including a substantial Vietnamese Catholic community, with Masses celebrated in both English and Vietnamese.[2]

No independent parish website is confirmed in available records at this time; parish information is maintained through the Diocese of Little Rock's own parish directory and the parish's social media presence.

History

Limited documented sources indicate that Catholic settlement in the area around Barling dates to German immigrant families who established the Springhill colony in the 1850s after leaving their homeland amid Prussian oppression.[3] The Sacred Heart of Mary mission was organized around 1902 and was served by a visiting priest from Subiaco Abbey; two acres of land for a church and cemetery were donated by the Weindel family.[4]

According to the same source, the mission's first church building was a converted barn erected around 1900, and in 1904 the church structure was relocated to its present site on Frank Street, while the original burial ground remained at the earlier location. Sisters from St. Scholastica Monastery subsequently opened a small school and lived on site to staff it.

In 1946, parishioners volunteered their labor to construct a stone schoolhouse at a cost of $6,322.86, which contained two classrooms, quarters for the visiting priest, and a basement hall and cafeteria. As the number of teaching sisters declined, the school was reduced to a preK-through-first-grade program in 1978, then further reduced before closing entirely in 1987. The stone schoolhouse itself was demolished in 2021, an event documented by the diocesan newspaper Arkansas Catholic.[5]

No confirmed founding date is documented in the parish's verified diocesan record, and the parish is not currently listed as operating a school. In recent decades the parish has grown to include a significant Vietnamese Catholic community, reflected in its regular schedule of Vietnamese-language Masses alongside English-language liturgies.[6]

Special features

  • Bilingual parish life, with regularly scheduled English- and Vietnamese-language Masses serving a multicultural congregation
  • Historic ties to Subiaco Abbey and the Order of Saint Benedict, which served the mission congregation in its earliest years
  • Parish cemetery associated with the original early-twentieth-century mission site

Relics

According to established Catholic tradition, the main altar of a dedicated parish church customarily contains relics of one or more saints, as is required for the consecration of an altar. Specific details regarding any relics held at Sacred Heart of Mary are not documented in publicly available sources.

Architecture and Art

Exterior features

Specific architectural details of the current church building are not well documented in publicly available sources. Parish communications refer to services being held in a "Parish Center," suggesting the current worship space may be a multipurpose building rather than a traditional freestanding church nave, though this is not fully confirmed.

Interior features

Detailed descriptions of the interior arrangement are not documented in available sources. Given the parish's bilingual English and Vietnamese congregations, the worship space likely accommodates multiple language communities across its Mass schedule.

Stained Glass Windows

No specific information about stained glass windows is documented in available sources.

Statues and Sculptures

No specific information about statuary is documented in available sources, though devotional images honoring the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Virgin Mary would be consistent with the parish's dedication.

Other Artwork

No further devotional artwork is publicly documented in available sources.

Image gallery

`

No gallery has been created yet. Type "Gallery" into the input box to create the page, save the page with the loaded template, and then use the Form tab to start adding photos. No gallery subpage has been created. Please use the input box above to create it.

Media

No media found for this saint.

Related parishes

Template:OtherSaintParishes

External links

Social media

Official Social Media

References

  1. ↑ "Two-room school's stones come tumbling down in Barling". Arkansas Catholic. https://arkansas-catholic.org/2021/08/30/two-room-schools-stones-come-tumbling-down-in-barling/. 
  2. ↑ "Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic Church". Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/sacredheartofmary/. 
  3. ↑ "Two-room school's stones come tumbling down in Barling". Arkansas Catholic. https://arkansas-catholic.org/2021/08/30/two-room-schools-stones-come-tumbling-down-in-barling/. 
  4. ↑ "Two-room school's stones come tumbling down in Barling". Arkansas Catholic. https://arkansas-catholic.org/2021/08/30/two-room-schools-stones-come-tumbling-down-in-barling/. 
  5. ↑ "Two-room school's stones come tumbling down in Barling". Arkansas Catholic. https://arkansas-catholic.org/2021/08/30/two-room-schools-stones-come-tumbling-down-in-barling/. 
  6. ↑ "Sacred Heart of Mary Church - Barling". Diocese of Little Rock. https://www.dolr.org/parishes/sacred-heart-mary-church-barling. 
Retrieved from "https://dev.saintapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sacred_Heart_of_Mary_(Diocese_of_Little_Rock)&oldid=57938"