Jubilee Pilgrim Guide

St. James Basilica, Jamestown

In 1889 the Dakota Territory was divided into the states of North and South Dakota. The same year Fr. John Shanley was handed a telegram as he was leaving his rectory in St. Paul, Minnesota, designating him the new bishop of the Diocese of Jamestown which covered the whole state. St. James became a parish in 1881, and the first church was completed in 1883. It was a small church back then, but served its purpose.

Bishop Shanley arrived on the train on a bitter cold night January 23, 1890. The story is told that they were not expecting his arrival yet, there was no food in the house and no linens for the beds. In 1891, Bishop Shanley moved to Fargo and by 1897 the seat of the Diocese was moved to Fargo where the population was growing and there were better train connections.

As the years passed, the parish knew they had to build a bigger church for their growing population. The present church was built in 1914. The main structure of the church is made of Hebron brick from Hebron, ND. In 1915 a pipe organ was installed, bringing beautiful music to the church.

The two towers are 125 feet high. They are noticed when you drive into Jamestown a few miles out no matter how you enter Jamestown. The architecture of the church is American gothic in style.

On October 26, 1988, St. James church was elevated to the status of a Minor Basilica by Pope John Paul II. St. James was the 34th church in the United States with the designation of a Minor Basilica. The reason for this designation is because the church was the original seat of the Diocese, and it was the first Cathedral for the whole state of North Dakota. In 1982 the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Notice on the very top of the exterior of the church, there is a Celtic cross, a nod to the early Irish immigrants. There is a statue of Our Lady placed right below the cross.

This church is named after St. James the Greater, who also happens to be the patron saints of Pilgrims. The basilica has its own coat of arms that depicts three gold shells in honor of their patron. The seashell is associated with St. James and the ancient Camino Pilgrimage to the shrine in Santiago, Spain where pilgrims can venerate the tomb of St. James.

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fargo

The word “cathedral” originates from a Latin word, cathedra, meaning seat. The Cathedral Church serves as the seat of the bishop in a particular Diocese.

The first church building for St. Mary’s was a humble wooden structure. It was a originally a Methodist church on the south side of the tracks. It was purchased 1880 and hauled to the corner of 8th Street and 6th Ave North. For the first 19 years, this building served the faithful. There are first-hand accounts that describe how cold it would be in the wintertime; it was not unusual to see ice on the sanctuary floor.

When Bishop Shanley arrived in Fargo, he took one look at it and declared it a “shack”. It was time for a new bigger cathedral church. The fundraising began soon after. Shanley acquired a piece of land close by which he desired the new Cathedral to be built on. He collected the money and was ready to build until a fire demolished downtown Fargo. Bishop Shanely gave the money he had raised to rebuild the town. Once the town was rebuilt, the church campaign fund had to start over. Work for the church restarted in 1898 and was dedicated on May 30, 1899.

In June 1955, long after Bishop Shanely had passed away, renovations began in the basement of the church. Demolition work had to be done in the social hall. The workers discovered a room with a seven-foot metal container. The work stopped at that point and since it was getting late, they decided to lock up and deal with this new discovery in the morning. However, curiosity got the best of Fr. Leo Stelten and Fr. Gerald Potter, and they went back and opened the container. They discovered it was a coffin, and it was occupied! Bishop Shanley was buried there. The only problem was there was a tombstone with his name on it out in the cemetery. Eventually, his remains were finally interred in Holy Cross Cemetery.

The church has been through many renovations with the most recent one started in 2024. The nave got a new coat of paint along with a trim of blue and gold leaf. The artwork is expected to be completed in the summer of 2026.

The Jubilee Cross at the Cathedral is from the church of St. Benedict Parish in Horace.

The light streaming through the stained-glass windows is beautiful on a sunny afternoon day, but be sure to look at the details. Notice the one window of the Virgin Mary on the right side nearest the altar, she is stepping on a snake with no shoes on, this is taken from Gen 3:15, “the woman shall strike at your head.” Then notice the window of St. Patrick, far back right side, he too is stepping on a snake because he “drove the snakes out of Ireland”, but he has shoes on, why is there a difference between the two windows? The snake represents evil, Mary is Immaculate, she is free from all sin, the snake cannot hurt her, whereas the snake (evil) can bite St. Patrick.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel, Fargo

Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel was consecrated February 11, 2013, by Bishop Samuel Aquila. Bishop Aquila commissioned the chapel. The eagle on the ambo is a nod to him, whose last name means “eagle”. The chapel is a 24/7 Eucharistic Adoration chapel.

St. Michael’s Church, Grand Forks

Grand Forks was an important meeting and trading posts for Native Americans, French explorers and fur trappers. By the 1880s the railroad came through and with the steamboats docking there, the town’s population boomed. On February 22, 1881, Grand Forks was incorporated as a city. In 1872, Fr. Simonet came down from Pembina to offer Mass for the first settlers, the French-Indian families and the newly arrived Irish and Germans. Back then the church was a tiny log cabin, or frame chapel someplace along the Red River.

The first St. Michael’s Church was built and dedicated in 1883. It was damaged by a tornado. It was rebuilt in 1893, and then again after a fire in 1907. Finally, a new site was established and a new church built in 1909. Fr. Conaty hired English born architects, who also designed the state capital building and the Basilica in Jamestown, to build the Romanesque church we see today. Notice the statue of St. Patrick on the right side of the high altar, a nod to the Irish priest and parishioners.

The church was renovated in 1985 and repainted in 2001, but in many ways still resembles the original.

St. Michael’s Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Want to learn more about St. Michael’s history, visit www.stmichaelschurchgf.com/history.

St. Therese the Little Flower Church, Rugby

The first settlers in the area came at the end of the 18th century, they would have had Mass in a makeshift structure built by the railroad. Eventually, the people came up with enough money to build a proper church and they named it, St. Cyrinus.

By 1927 the population was growing enough with new Catholic families moving in that a much bigger church was needed. However, raising funds proved quite difficult. St. Therese of Lisieux was canonized in 1925 and the pastor, having a devotion to her, decided to pray a novena for her intercession in the matter. After the novena a loan was approved and $40,000 was given to start construction. A new site was chosen in Rugby for the church to be built, and it was decided it would be named after St. Therese the Little Flower. The church was built in 1927. It took many years to pay the loan off, especially because of the depression and then World War II. But with a little ingenuity and lots of parish bazaars in addition to donations from neighboring parishes, the debt was paid in full by Easter of 1945. The parish had a large celebration and burned the mortgage with the bishop present to watch.

This is the only church in the Diocese of Fargo that has a baldacchino, which means “canopy” over the altar. It is not very common to see these in catholic churches outside of the major basilicas in Rome. The most well-known baldacchino is a St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 

Carmel of Mary, Wahpeton

In 1954, the Carmelite nuns of Allentown, Pennsylvania, were looking for a place to begin a new foundation. Through various communications and generous donations, that new home became North Dakota down by Wahpeton. They first were housed in an old hospital building. When they outgrew that place it was time to build a new monastery. The new monastery is 6.5 miles west of Wahpeton, surrounded by the Wild Rice River, on a beautiful piece of land. It is here that the nuns can enjoy silence and the beauty of the North Dakota prairie.

The nuns live in a cloister (a perpetual enclosure), maintain silence and solitude for much of the day. Their primary focus is prayer, through which they seek God. They follow a structured day of activity interspersed with times for prayer. The day begins at 5:30 a.m. with morning prayer, a holy hour and Mass and ends with Night prayer at 7:50 p.m. before they retire at 9:00 p.m. Along with their communal prayers, the nuns find balance in their lives by doing manual labor around the monastery like cooking, cleaning, sewing, gardening and craftwork.

There is a Marian shrine on their property, where an annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Prairies occurs every year in mid-August.

The nuns take prayer requests (see www.carmelofmary.org), and you can join them for Mass and prayer times.

Maryvale Retreat Center, Valley City

The history of this site starts with the Sisters of Mary of the Presentation founded in 1828 in France. Some of sisters came to the North Dakota in 1903, and moved to Valley City in 1965. The sisters needed a place to gather with their sisters throughout the United States, so Maryvale was built.

In the early 1970s, the sisters started using the hospitality wing for retreat ministry. The sisters took care of everything from cooking to cleaning. As the decades went on, the retreats continued, but the number of sisters started to decline. Eventually they started hiring lay employees to help keep everything running smoothly.

In 2022, realizing they could not continue running the center with the number of sisters that were present there, the sisters gifted Maryvale for continued use as a retreat center while they also retain part of it as their home. Settled in the hill country and valley with 500 acres, including groomed trails, it is truly a peaceful site and the perfect place for retreats.

The name “Maryvale” means “Mary’s Valley” as there are several shrines and grottos that are dedicated to Our Lady on the grounds. When you visit, take some time to walk the paths as you are able and enjoy the different shrines: Our Lady of Fatima, St. Joseph’s, and Mary and Christ Child. You can also take some time to pray the Stations of the Cross.