"A Parish for Casas Adobes"

A benefactress, (Mrs.) Eugenia Scullin Bagnall presented the diocese with a gift of about ten acres of property in the 7500 block of Paseo del Norte.
The territory was transferred from Sacred Heart Parish on October 11, 1965, to form the new parish.
St. Odilia Catholic Community celebrated Mass for the first time in the auditorium at Immaculate Heart High School on October 17, 1965.
On May 12, 1969, the groundbreaking ceremony for the church took place.
The dedication of the church took place on May 7, 1970, the feast day of the Ascension.

You might be wondering, "Who is St. Odilia?" Actually, we can claim two patronesses, Saint Odilia of Cologne, our principal patroness, and St. Odilia of Alsace. Both are patronesses of good eyesight.
 

Saint Odilia of Cologne lived during the fourth century and was the Christian daughter of a powerful British King. A group of eleven young women, among them Saint Odilia and Saint Ursula, were martyred while on a pilgrimage to Rome. This was about the year 300 A.D.

Centuries passed, until in the year 1287, a Crosier Brother received a vision and an admonition. He was told where to find the relics of the blessed maiden, and was given a heavenly command that they be secured. The relics were found in a garden, under a tree. As they were carried back in procession to the Crosier Monastery in Paris, France, miracles took place which convinced the Church authorities that the apparitions to the Brother had been genuine and that God's providence is often not for human comprehension. Thus was Saint Odilia given to the Crosiers as a patroness. Odilia was a young person on a journey of faith. Through her dying and rising with Christ she is an instrument of God's providence for the Crosier Order and St. Odilia Catholic Community. For those suffering with ailments of the eyes who have sought her intercession and found comfort, Saint Odilia is also a gracious sign of God's healing.

Relics of Saint Odilia of Cologne are encased in our stone altar; she is honored as our principle patroness. We celebrate her Feast Day on July 18th.

St. Odilia of Alsace was born blind to a Frankish nobleman of Alsace, Adalric, and his wife Bereswindis. Adalric, ashamed of his daughter's affliction, ordered that his daughter be killed. Bereswindis persuaded him out of infanticide, but he insisted that his daughter be sent far away. The mother put her child in the care of a peasant woman and sent them away.

The girl was brought up by nuns in a convent. When she was twelve, St. Erhard, a bishop at Regensburg, Germany, was instructed in a dream to go to this convent in Franche-Comte and baptize a girl who was born blind. He was to give her the name Odilia. St. Erhard obeyed, and upon baptism, her sight was restored. Odilia stayed on at the convent for a while but suffered petty persecutions of jealousy. She wrote to her brother Hugh for guidance.

Hugh asked his sister to come back home. When she arrived, Adalric was so angry that he struck his son dead. Adalric repented and although he wished for his daughter to marry, when she insisted on religious life, he offered her his castle. It was here, at Hohenberg, that she founded an abbey and became its Abbess.

Relics of Saint Odilia of Alsace are in the sacristy of the church. We celebrate her Feast Day on December 13th.