DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Grotto at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Comal County. Now, some stones get laid for buildings, some for fences, and some — well, some get laid for reasons that go a good deal deeper than any of those. This is a story about that third kind.
It starts with 1918, and if you know anything about 1918, you already feel the weight of what's coming. A major influenza epidemic spread across the United States that year, and it caused many deaths. Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church was not spared.
The parish felt it. And when a community feels something like that — really feels it — sometimes the only answer is to build something that says we were here, we suffered, and by the grace of God, it ended. Under the leadership of Father J.M.J.
Wack, who served Saints Peter and Paul Church for thirty-eight years and who would pass in 1927, the members of that congregation made a decision. They would construct a grotto. Not just any grotto, but one modeled after the Lourdes Grotto in southwestern France.
Now picture that ambition for a moment — a small Texas parish reaching across an ocean for their inspiration. They gathered native rock from area ranches, stone pulled right out of the Hill Country ground, and they brought in a man named J.J. Scholz, all the way from Nebraska, to complete the stonework.
He didn't work alone. Parishioners aided him, neighbors alongside a craftsman from a thousand miles north, all of them setting stone together. And on June 29, 1921, the congregation dedicated the shrine during a celebration.
The epidemic that had taken their people was over. The grotto was standing. Some stones, friend, really do say everything words cannot.
What the marker says
Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. A major influenza epidemic spread across the United States in 1918 causing many deaths. Under the leadership of Father J.M.J. Wack (d.1927), who served Saints Peter and Paul Church for 38 years, members constructed this grotto to commemorate an end to the disease-related deaths in the parish. Modeled after the Lourdes Grotto in southwestern France, it was built of native rock gathered from area ranches. Aided by parishioners, J.J. Scholz of Nebraska completed the stonework. The congregation dedicated the shrine during a celebration on June 29, 1921. (1980)