GOD & TEXAS: Panna Maria

In 1824, Leopold was born in Prussia, now Poland. His father supported the family of 10 children as an innkeeper and miller. They lived simply by going barefoot in the summer and wearing wooden shoes the rest of the year. Their house was modest with dirt floors. Being subservient in a German-dominated society, the economic conditions of their village were strained with little hope for a better life. 

As a teenager, Leopold felt that God was calling him to be a missionary, but he did not know where. After high school, he pursued the priesthood by joining the Order of Friars Minor Conventual. Following years of study in Bavaria, Leopold met Bishop Jean-Marie Odin of Galveston, who was raising funds for his diocese in Texas. It was then that Father Leopold Bonaventura Maria Moczygemba committed to being a missionary to Texas.

In 1852, his first ministry was in New Braunfels. But Moczygemba soon moved southeast of San Antonio, to the confluence of the San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek in Karnes County. He became business friends with John Twohig, an Irishman who fought in the Battle of Bexar, and was a successful banker and landowner. 

Together, they divided the land into long narrow strips fronting the creek and river. Once the land was surveyed, Moczygemba christened the new town, Panna Maria, Polish for Virgin Mary. He then began writing letters back to Prussia inviting his friends and family to immigrate to the land that he had prepared for them in Texas. 

His letters describing freedom and opportunity began to circulate throughout the hamlets and villages of Upper Silesia. The suppressed peasants rejoiced at the possibility of a better future and cherished each letter as a religious relic. With little to lose, almost 200 hopeful immigrants set sail for Texas in the winter of 1854-55. 

On December 24, 1854, the immigrants from Prussia celebrated their first Christmas Eve service in Texas. They met under an oak tree, and by the next Christmas, they had built their first church by the same tree. Now, 170 years later, Panna Maria remains the oldest Polish Catholic parish and the oldest Polish school in America.

Leopold Moczygemba went on to establish churches and schools in the northern regions of the United States. He died in 1891 and was buried in Michigan. In 1974, his remains were reinterred at Panna Maria under the oak tree where he led the first Christmas Eve service in 120 years earlier. 

Father Leopold came to Texas to prepare a place for his friends. His sacrifices saved many from a life of bondage and impossibilities. His actions remind us of Jesus who said in John 12 that He was going to prepare a place for us in Heaven. Christ is preparing a city for those who have prepared to meet Him. The Bible contains His letters of love and instruction that should stir our excitement for the Day when He will gather us in Heaven.

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